Law Roundtable

Thanks to John Welch at the TTABlog for pointing out In re Lafayette Street Partners, LLC, (July 9, 2008, not precedential) where the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board reversed a refusal to register the mark CHINATOWN BRASSERIE & Design (with BRASSERIE disclaimed) as being primarily ...

According to William New and Kaitlin Mara writing for Intellectual property Watch on July 21, 2008, the outcome of this week's World Trade Organization mini-ministerial (about 40 of the WTO’s 153 members) will be tied to addressing demands from the European Union, Switzerland, Brazil, India, and ...

In Surefoot LC v. Sure Foot Corp. (July 8, 2008), the Tenth Circuit applied MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. in a trademark dispute to hold that Declaratory Judgment jurisdiction could exist in light of "five separate TTAB oppositions combined with an extensive history of interactions between the ...

Thanks to John Welch at The TTABlog for pointing out Vibe Records, Inc. v. Vibe Media Group LLC, Opposition No. 91176345 (July 11, 2008) [precedential] where a U.S. trademark opposition was dismissed for failure to complete the electronic filing fee payment:

Opposer obtained an extension of time ...

According to Judge Sullivan in Tiffany (NJ) Inc. v. eBay (July 14, 2008),

Notwithstanding the significance of the online counterfeiting problem, it is clear that Tiffany invested relatively modest resources to combat the problem. In fiscal year 2003, Tiffany budgeted approximately $763,000 to the issue, representing less than ...

In the Matter of Flow International Corporation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comment on the terms of a proposed consent order that would allow Flow International Corporation’s (Flow) proposed $109 million acquisition of rival waterjet manufacturer OMAX Corporation (OMAX) where Flow will be required ...

The US Patent and Trademark Office has announced the extension of the Peer-to-Patent pilot for another year as well as its expansion to include pending patent applications for

On July 28, 2008 the Trilateral Patent Offices of Europe, Japan, and the U.S. will undertake a limited "Triway" worksharing pilot program that will be limited to 100 applications of diverse technologies, where the USPTO is the Office of first filing (OFF). The USPTO will accept 15 requests for ...

In "Patently Protectionist? An Empirical Analysis of Patent Cases at the International Trade Commission" (June, 24 2008), Colleen V. Chien argues that the data fail to support two major criticisms that have been levied against the ITC, that it is anti-defendant and that it is anti-foreigner:

In Muniauction, Inc. v. Thomson Corp. (July 14, 2008), the Federal Circuit held that Thomson's control of access to its system and instructinons to bidders on its use was not sufficient
to incur liability for direct infringement by the combined actions of multiple parties for a method claim directed ...