By Allison Strickland Ricketts
1. All Applicants/Registrants — Domicile Information (required now)
The
USPTO now requires all applicants and registrants to provide their physical
street address in order to establish their “domicile.” The USPTO requires
domicile information even if the trademark owner is represented by counsel.More
Prohibition of “Immoral or Scandalous” Marks Struck Down
Iancu v. Brunetti, 586 U.S.
___ (2019)
The United States Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the provision of Section 2(a) of the U.S.More
The long-awaited new Canadian trademark regime came into force on June 17, 2019. In its final form, the most significant changes include the following:
Registration
Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.Com, LLC, No. 17-571, 586 U.S. ____ (2019)
In its unanimous March 4, 2019 opinion, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in holding that copyright owners must wait for the U.S.More
Rimini
Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc., 139 S.Ct. 873 (2019)
Section 505 of the
Copyright Act permits a court to award “full costs.” The general federal statute governing awards
of costs specifies six categories of litigation expenses that qualify as
“costs:” More
Sparrow
Barns & Events LLC v. The Ruth Farm Inc., No. 4:19-CV-00067 (E.D. Tex. Apr. 10,
2019)
A district court in
Texas recently granted a preliminary injunction in a case involving
unregistered trade dress rights for a popular wedding venue. More
The USPTO periodically updates its database of approved
identifications of goods and services. https://idm-tmng.uspto.gov/id-master-list-public.html.
These changes often are made to conform
to updates in the international Nice Classification system. Another source of changes is user suggestions
to add identifications for types of goods/services or goods/services which are
not well-covered in the existing USPTO Manual of Acceptable Identifications.More
Australia’s Intellectual
Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other
Measures) Act 2018 (Amendment Act) took effect on February 24, 2019. The key change is a reduction in the time
period before a trademark registration can be challenged for non-use.
Before the Amendment Act,More
The Brazil Patent and
Trademark Office outlined new conditions for the registration of Geographical
Indications by way of its Normative Instruction 095/2018, published on December
28, 2018 and entered into force on February 26, 2019.
Geographical indications
(GIs), which can be protected as intellectual property rights,More