Recently in a landmark decision, United States PTO v. Booking.com B.V. the U.S. Supreme Court clarified certain trademark rights for “.com.” There, the High Court ruled 8-1 that Booking.com, a popular online travel reservation agency, could register its company name – BOOKING.COM – as a trademark. In doing so, the Supreme Court struck down the
Trademark
EU Trade Mark Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 in force
By Cynthia O’Donoghue & Philip Thomas on
On 23 March 2016, European Union Trade Mark Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 came into force. The new Regulation amends Community Trade Mark Regulation 207/2009/EC, and makes a number of procedural and substantive changes to EU trade mark law. Most of the new Regulation’s provisions are effective immediately, with the remainder scheduled to come into force in October 2017.
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Federal Circuit Rejects Disparaging Trademarks’ Ban on First Amendment Grounds
By Kimberly Chow on
A December ruling by the Federal Circuit emphasized the value of commercial speech through trademark registration, and the case may have implications for the Washington Redskins. The NFL team’s Super Bowl dreams may be over, but the intellectual property battle over their name is still alive.
In a move that is likely to affect the Redskins’ fight to keep their trademark, the Federal Circuit held December 22 in a separate case that the ban on “disparaging” trademarks is viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can still decide whether to appeal the decision, though it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will pick up the case without a circuit split.
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The Future of the Internet: New gTLDs have arrived
This post was written by Gregory S. Shatan.
The number of Top Level Domains (such as .com, .net, .eu, etc.) are expanding exponentially. On October 31st, the first of the new gLTDs opened registration for a trademark “Sunrise,” which allows trademark owners to register domains matching their trademarks. The first English language new gLTDs …