Jacqueline Lesser

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Who Is Holding the Bag: How Will the Supreme Court Resolve the Circuit Split on Recovery of Profits in Trademark Cases?

By Jacqueline Lesser on December 31, 2019 Posted in Trademark

Two weeks from now, on January 14, 2020, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc. on the long-standing circuit split over whether willful infringement is a necessary precondition for an award of profits in a Section 43(a) trademark infringement case. Under the Lanham Act, a victorious plaintiff in … Continue Reading

Protected and Unfiltered. Supreme Court Strikes Down the Lanham Act’s Scandalous and Immoral Restrictions.

By Jacqueline Lesser on June 25, 2019 Posted in Trademark

In April at oral argument, the bench grappled with the issue of viewpoint discrimination based on the literal meaning of the statute and the genuine concern that without regulation, profane and obscene language and images will be imprinted with the ®. Ultimately, in a unanimous decision, the court held that the statutory language restricting scandalous and … Continue Reading

Protected or Unprotected: The Supreme Court Hears Iancu v. Brunetti

By Jacqueline Lesser on March 19, 2019 Posted in Trademark

On April 15, 2019, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether dirty words and vulgar terms may be registrable as trademarks – and if so, what is the test? Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act currently provides that the Trademark Office may refuse registration of a mark that “[c]onsists of or comprises immoral… or … Continue Reading

TTAB Retreats From Precedential Houndstooth Mafia Decision

By Jacqueline Lesser on March 16, 2016 Posted in Trademark

Trademark proceedings are contentious proceedings, but the battle for registration of the HOUNDSTOOTH MAFIA trademark has been largely overshadowed by the now-ended dispute between the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) and the reviewing U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. After a three-year struggle, the TTAB vacated The Board of Trustees of … Continue Reading

Transforming Works: The Second Circuit Rules That the Google Library Project Digitization Is a Transformative Fair Use in Authors Guild, v. Google Inc.

By Jacqueline Lesser on October 20, 2015 Posted in Uncategorized

On October 16, 2015, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling in Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc., 954 F. Supp. 2d 282 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), previously reported here, that Google’s digitization of complete copyrighted works, without author permission, and the creation of excerpt “snippets,” accessible to the public by contracting libraries for research, is … Continue Reading

Transforming Works: The Second Circuit Rules That the Google Library Project Digitization Is a Transformative Fair Use in Authors Guild, v. Google Inc.