Tag Archives: trademark

5th Circuit agrees that joint TM owners can’t sue each other under any Lanham Act theory

Reed v. Marshall, — F.4th —-, 2025 WL 1822673, No. 24-20198 (5th Cir. Jul. 2, 2025) Jade, an R&B, hip hop, and soul vocal group, rose to prominence in the 1990s. Jade disbanded in 1995, when the members began pursuing … Continue reading

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Scotts loses trade dress claim over green & gold for Miracle-Gro

Scotts Co. v. Procter & Gamble Co., 2025 WL 1779167, No. 2:24-cv-4199 (S.D. Ohio Jun. 27, 2025) A different Scotts trade dress claim than the one I blogged last year. While it’s hard to get rid of trademark claims on … Continue reading

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parties’ marketing to Spanish speakers in SoCal is not meaningful marketing overlap

Olé Mexican Foods Inc. v. SK Market Inc., 2025 WL 1717646, No. 2:25-cv-01877-WLH-BFM (C.D. Cal. May 13, 2025) Courts have already converged on “everybody uses the internet to market, so that’s not a significant overlap.” This is the first decision … Continue reading

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Deadline extended to Friday: TM scholarship roundtable

  TM scholarship roundtable The Trademark and Unfair Competition Scholarship Roundtable co-hosted by Harvard, NYU, and the University of Pennsylvania will take place this year at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. The Roundtable is designed to be a … Continue reading

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Reminder: TM scholarship roundtable

The Trademark and Unfair Competition Scholarship Roundtable co-hosted by Harvard, NYU, and the University of Pennsylvania will take place this year at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. The Roundtable is designed to be a forum for the discussion … Continue reading

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Sixteenth Trademark Scholars’ Roundtable Session 4: How We Got to Trademark Use 2.0

Robert Burrell: use in Commonwealth systems came from strict liability for double identity—once that was extended to advertising, there are a whole lot of nonconfusing/beneficial uses of marks in advertising. TM use was brought in as a safety valve to … Continue reading

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Sixteenth Trademark Scholars’ Roundtable Session 3 continued

Midpoint discussant: Laura Heymann Is the goal consistency? Is the goal limiting principles that can end a case early? Is use the right tool? Is it a proxy? To what extent should we accept the rest of the landscape as … Continue reading

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Sixteenth Trademark Scholars’ Roundtable Session 3: What is the Significance of Trademark Use 2.0?

Introduction: Mark Lemley: What VIP actually says: Rogers test insulates from liability when use is only non-source identifying. Cardinal sin is to undermine source-indicating functioning: LV modification of mark in suitcase market implicates the core concerns of TM law. That … Continue reading

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Sixteenth Trademark Scholars’ Roundtable Session 2: part 2

Mid-point discussants:  Rebecca Tushnet Continuing the theme of offering a series of observations: Picking up on the relevance of 33(b)/referential use. First, for textualists, it may be true that 33(b) indicates that there is no general use as a mark … Continue reading

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Sixteenth Trademark Scholars’ Roundtable Session 2: Trademark Use as an Element of Infringement Analysis

Mike Grynberg: SCt opinions since 2008. Courts don’t care about TM law; every now & then a judge does, but keeping the general rule in mind is useful—can’t expect dcts in particular to be able to sit back and explore all … Continue reading

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