The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently announced a new awards program to recognize brand owners utilizing their trademarks to make meaningful contributions towards solving humanitarian challenges. The Trademarks for Humanity awards competition will recognize brand owners improving the environment through their products and services.
Henderson Franklin’s legal team returns to Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa on Friday, February 25, 2022 with a new twist. The main room will offer the firm’s most popular workshop, HR Law & Solutions.
New for 2022, attendees will have the option to attend breakout sessions focusing on niche corporate matters and contracts, family businesses, startups and how to make informed real estate decisions. Click here to download the brochure.
General Session #1, Lingering Effects of COVID on Florida Employers, presented by Scott Atwood, Esq.
From business shutdowns and PPP loans to vaccinations, COVID has presented unique challenges to Florida businesses. Henderson Franklin’s employment group chair Scott Atwood will address the multi-faceted employment issues that employers may face, including: current obligations over masks and mandatory vaccinations; how to deal with possible long-term disability claims and leave issues arising from COVID; increased union activity; and the pros and cons of a remote/hybrid workforce.
General Session #2, Saving a Buck can Cost you a Million. Update on Recent Employment Cases and Mistakes that Employers Keep Making, presented by Scott Atwood, Esq. and Robert Shearman, Esq.
Continue Reading Registration is Open: Southwest Florida Legal Summit
After months (or, perhaps, years) of diligent legal work, your business has finally secured its intellectual property rights through a patent, a trademark registration, a copyright registration or some combination thereof. Finally, you breathe a sigh of relief, put your legal paperwork in a file cabinet and get back to running your business. Years later, you find that a competitor is infringing your rights. After blowing the dust off your paperwork you discover, to your dismay, that your intellectual property rights were not properly maintained and have expired. What happened and what do you do now?
Unfortunately, many clients fail to realize that most intellectual property rights carry maintenance obligations until it is too late. That being said, these are pitfalls which can be easily avoided, and clients often have tools they can use to “backfill” rights if a deadline is inadvertently missed.
U.S. Patents are subject to periodic maintenance fee payments. The motivation behind this is the anti-competitive effect patents have on the market. Congress decided that there should be some affirmative, monetary obligation of patent owners to maintain patent rights as a means of culling unused patents which might otherwise be preventing competition. Such patent maintenance fees are due at the 3½, 7½ and 11½ year marks. These fees follow the following schedule:
Additionally, each of these fees can be paid within a six-month grace period (for an additional fee).
If these fees are not timely paid, then the underlying patent lapses and is no longer enforceable. This can be an enormous problem. Many clients either forget or are not told about patent maintenance obligations. The result can be a loss of rights and the inability to stop knock-off products. There are certain procedures to try to reinstate a patent which was unintentionally abandoned in this way, but the costs can be high and the probability of success can vary. This can also open the door to intervening rights by certain competitors. The best thing to do is to carefully calendar maintenance fee deadlines ahead of time and engage counsel to help you.
Continue Reading IP Maintenance 101: Keeping Your Intellectual Property Rights Alive
After years of research and development, your company is finally about to launch a new “game changing” product. You know you need to protect this product, but where do you start? What do you name your new product, and how do you protect that name? These and other frequently asked questions often arise in new entrepreneurial ventures — whether for new businesses or new product lines for existing businesses.
Most business owners intuitively understand the value of their intellectual property. They understand that their products, brands and other ideas need to be protected, but can be confused by some of the “jargon” used in intellectual property law with words like “patent,” “trademark” and “copyright.” This post helps explain some of the key differences between patents, trademarks and copyrights.
A patent is a legal right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing a patented invention for a fixed period of time. In the U.S., patents are exclusively under federal jurisdiction and are awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in exchange for making public an enabling disclosure of the invention, and generally last for 20 years (15 years for design patents).
Continue Reading What is the difference between patents, trademarks and copyrights?
When launching a business or a new product, one of the most important initial considerations is the name of that business or product. The name is the first thing a potential consumer comes into contact with and what the consumer will remember. The name is the vehicle by which all marketing will travel and will be repeated over and over in advertising, on social media and websites. It is, therefore, one of the things that businesses strive to “get it right.”
Usually, this is something that is left to the creative types — those who understand market research, focus groups and creating all-around brands. However, even at the early stages, businesses should pay attention to the legal side of branding to make sure they “get it right.” If you are launching a new business or a new product, be sure take into consideration the following areas.
If so, in addition to any trademark concerns, it is imperative to check that the company name is available in the state where the business will be formed. Most states do not allow two businesses to have identical names, regardless of the goods or services they offer.
Product packaging is a critical part of every manufacturer’s operations (and even that of many wholesalers and retailers). A product’s packaging is often the first thing customers see: and first impressions count. That is why, for example, an entirely new discipline – packaging engineering – has grown over the last several decades and why companies like Starbucks® and Apple® work so hard to have every napkin, cup, box and bag uniformly branded.
Yet despite the obvious commercial and marketing importance of product packaging, many companies fail to protect the intellectual property rights embodied in such packaging – rights which can often be secured under patent, copyright and/or trademark law.
Product packaging is one of those often overlooked areas of intellectual property. Manufacturing clients rightly focus on protecting their products but sometimes forget that consumers usually see their packaging first. Failing to protect such packaging can be a major misstep since competitors often infringe upon both packaging as well as products.
A design patent protects the ornamental design (i.e., the “look and feel”) of an invention. In other words, design patents protect the way an invention (including, potentially, product packaging) looks. When most people think about patents, they think about a “utility patent” – something which protects utilitarian or functional aspects of an invention. But a “design patent” is different – it protects the appearance of an invention. That’s often perfect for packaging. In general, that means that new, useful and non-obvious packaging designs can potentially be protected.
Major companies have been using design patents to protect product packaging for over a century. For example, U.S. D48160 is a design patent issued in 1915 over what we now know as the Coca-Cola® bottle. More recent examples include everything from Chobani’s design patent covering product packaging for yogurt boxes (U.S. D828766S1) and Kraft’s design patent covering a salad dressing bottle (U.S. D659000S1) to Starbucks’ design patents for a coffee cup (U.S. D529762S1) and a coffee cup lid (U.S. D516424).
Continue Reading Copyright and patent protection apply to product packaging, too
Trademark scams, as detailed in our earlier post here, are back with a vengeance. Because of the nature of these scams and the potential cost of falling for them, we felt it was time to address this topic again.
Federal trademark applications and trademark registrations are public records. The United States Patent and Trademark Office maintains a searchable database of currently existing and expired trademarks. Among other information in the database is the name and address of the owner of a trademark application or registration, USPTO Serial and Registration Numbers, registration dates and even visual images of trademarks.
Scammers can obtain this information directly off the USPTO website and enter it into documents that look “official” and emanate from such “official” entities as World Trademark Register, United States Trademark Compliance Office, Patent & Trademark Bureau, United States Trademark Registration Office, and WTP Trademark Service.
While COVID-19 rightfully dominates news coverage and Henderson, Franklin has been providing our clients with information, updates and links to resources to help get through this, we also recognize that the mundane is sometimes just as important. Thus, in a world without Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL, NASCAR or F1, we offer our own unique sports coverage, with an intellectual property slant.
Tom Brady Leaves Boston, Files Trademarks Applications
After 20 storied years with the New England Patriots, Tom Brady turned his back on the franchise, his fans and six Lombardi Trophies to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This is undoubtedly a bitter pill for New England fans to swallow, who will now have to get used to mediocre football. (Patriot fans, please see Chicago Bears for guidance).
On the other hand, with his place in the Hall of Fame secure, Brady was looking for new challenges. Specifically, it appears, the challenge of brand extension. Almost as soon as the ink dried on his new contract with Tampa Bay, Brady’s management, TEB Capital Management, Inc., filed applications to register the trademarks TOMPA BAY and TAMPA BRADY with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The trademark applications identify the goods the mark will appear on, specifically all the clothing, hats and footwear that Tampa Bay fans are rushing out (at least online!) to buy. Time will tell whether Brady can repeat his on-field success with Tampa Bay, but it is certain that his off-field brand strengthening moves will allow him to throw from a deep pocket.
Nature Boy Down for the Count
Continue Reading The Sports Page
COVID-19 has disrupted businesses and has wrought havoc with timelines and deadlines. Likely, it will continue to do so. Many government agencies, such as the IRS as we reported here, are reacting to COVID-19 by extending deadlines. For those with intellectual property-related deadlines in the near term, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has recently made some policy changes in response to COVID-19.
While work goes on inside the USPTO, the building is closed to the public and any in-person business. All previously scheduled meetings or hearings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) or Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) are to take place by video or teleconference.
With regard to deadlines to respond to USPTO actions, inquiries or other deadlines, those are set by statute and rule and the failure to timely respond to a deadline results in an abandonment of the underlying trademark or patent application or registration.
Under the Lanham Act, (15 U.S.C. 1051, et seq.), a trademark owner can bring suit against any entity that infringes its trademark.
Among the recoverable damages are disgorgement of the infringer’s profits from the sale of infringing goods, 15 U.S.C. 1117(a). However, where the infringement constitutes counterfeiting, those damages can be trebled or the trademark owner can elect to recover statutory damages, amounting to potentially $2 million per mark infringed, 15 U.S.C. 1117(b), 1117(c).
Continue Reading Holding Landlords Liable for Trademark Infringement by Tenant