In August, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced a controversial new requirement, whereby trademark applications made by foreign applicants resident in the United States would only be able to apply to register once they first proved their status as...

Japanese videogame giant Nintendo has launched proceedings against website RomUniverse, an online source of unauthorized videogame ROMs, including for many popular Nintendo games. ROM files are essentially illegal copies of games, which can be played on modified game...

Ohio State University baffled many when it recently attempted to trademark the word “The”, insisting that the full name of the institution, founded in 1870, is “The Ohio State University” and, as such, it was entitled to trademark the word “The” in order to license...

Pop superstar Ariana Grande has commenced proceedings against American fashion retailer Forever 21, alleging trademark infringement as well as a violation of her privacy, and copyright infringement. Grande’s lawsuit alleges that when she declined to feature in a...

Former US President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama have been accused of “deplorable behavior” after they applied to cancel the trademark of an e-book publisher. In April, the Obamas had their application to trademark their own company name, Higher Ground...

The owner of a Florida beauty salon has attracted the unwelcome attention of Uber after releasing her own appointment-booking app, “BeauBer”. The name of Carolina Vengoechea’s app is a portmanteau of the two services she offers at her salon, namely “beautician” and...

Singapore has become the first country in the world to enable applicants to file for a trademark registration via an app on their smartphone. “IPOS Go” was built and released by IPOS – the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. According to IPOS, the new app...

Welsh Brewer Boss Brewing applied last year to register two of its beers, “Boss Black” and “Boss Boss”, a process that usually costs in the region of £300. However, clothing giant Hugo Boss objected, insisting that the small Welsh firm “cease and desist” selling the...

Hard rock band Guns N’ Roses have agreed to settle a trademark infringement lawsuit brought against brewery Oskar Blues, which had been selling a beer called “Guns ‘N’ Rosé”. The federal lawsuit was filed in May 2019. The brewery had earlier sought to trademark the...

The Court of Appeals in the US has reaffirmed the right of The Gatorade Company to use the slogan “Gatorade The Sports Fuel Company” in the latest installment of a long-running dispute. SportFuel, a Chicago-based lifestyle and nutrition consultancy which owns a number...

American fast food giant McDonald’s has suffered a fresh blow to its “Mc” trademark, losing its exclusive claim to the use of the prefix on a number of its products and services. Irish company Supermac’s, which operates over one hundred food outlets in the Republic of...

Claridge’s Hotel of Mayfair has won its trademark case against Claridge Candles after successfully arguing that the independent candle manufacturer had been trading off the hotel's name and reputation. The hotel had argued that the candle and oil diffuser company had...

Red Bull’s latest appeal against the European Central Court’s decision to invalidate its “blue and silver” trademarks has ended in failure. The soft drinks giant registered two trademarks, the first in 2005 and the second in 2011, covering the use of the colors blue...

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has today published its revised internal governance rules (IGR) and new accompanying statutory guidance, setting out the requirements for the approved regulators of legal services to ensure the separation of regulatory and representative...

In a rather rare application, Scottish glass producer Glencairn sought to prevent the Leeds team at IP law specialist Virtuoso Legal from acting for Glencairn’s opponent, Canadian-based Product Specialities Inc.  The basis for the case was that the Virtuoso Legal...

Amazon today announced the expansion of Transparency, its product serialization service, to France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K., India, and Canada. When brands use Transparency to apply unique codes to their products, customers, brands, Amazon, and other participants...

Trademark professionals have completed over 2 million AI-powered trademark searches in 7 years through TrademarkNow’s platform. The amount of searches is growing rapidly every month, as evidenced by an increasing number of companies implementing intellectual property...

With all the public battles that Facebook has been confronted with recently, it’s no surprise that Which? managed to, very easily, work its way through the company’s ad monitoring process. What is shocking is how long the advert managed to stay active and unnoticed –...

JetBlue Airways has filed an infringement suit against Walmart for the name Jetblack. According to court filings, JetBlue claimed that Walmart tried to capitalize on the goodwill associated with the airline’s trademark name. JetBlue state that Walmart's mark causes...

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law on Monday that bars registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan led a six-justice majority to invalidate the provision of the 1946 Lanham...