The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has suspended a trademark application with a racially offensive word pending the Supreme Court weighing in on the issue.
Menu
Archives: Trademarks
Happy World Intellectual Property Day!
April 26, 2016
It’s April 26, which means it’s World Intellectual Property Day. How are you planning on celebrating? Long ago, the only types of property were physical objects and real property (also known as “land.”) The law eventually came to recognize that the intangible works of the human mind were also valuable and worthy of protection. Hence, intellectual property. Definitions vary, but in the U.S., we typically identify four categories of intellectual property: Copyright The U.S. Copyright Office defines copyright as “a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a…
Trademark Question: Can You Own the Name of a Sport You Invent?
April 21, 2016
The inventor of Fowling, which combines football and bowling, has been trying to protect the name as a trademark. What went wrong?
Serial Trademark Troubles: No Registration for the Popular Podcast
April 12, 2016
Serial is perhaps the biggest success story in the history of podcasting. But the producers of Serial have had a bit less success at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Since shortly after the show debuted in Fall 2014, they have been trying to convince the USPTO to register SERIAL as a trademark. Thus far, they haven’t succeeded.
