IP Pipeline Blog

Luxury fashion brand Hermès sued Mason Rothschild in January 2022 alleging that the digital images underlying the non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) produced and sold by Rothschild depicting faux fur-covered Birkin handbags – the “MetaBirkins” – constituted trademark infringement and dilution and that...Read More

Intellectual property rights can get muddled in the “real world” and with the advent of virtual worlds, such as the Metaverse, this will only further complicate matters for brand owners who will now have to monitor and enforce their rights in the boundless virtual world. Indeed, legal disputes are already surfacing in the...Read More

The Trademark Modernization Act (TMA) was signed into law December 27, 2020. Importantly, the burden shifting provision for trademark owners in litigation seeking preliminary or permanent injunctive relief was made effective immediately.Read More

Rooted in the principle of fairness, the doctrine of assignor estoppel generally prevents an inventor, who had previously assigned their patent rights to another for value, from later contesting the validity of the assigned patent.   Read More

On June 21, 2021, in United States v. Arthrex, the Supreme Court finds that Administrative Patent Judges (“APJs”) on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) panels for inter partes review (“IPR”) proceedings to be acting as Principal Officers in violation of the Appointments Clause.Read More

A failure to address IP considerations can have a devastating and lasting impact—including a permanent loss of IP rights and a risk of costly litigation—which ultimately hinders the ability to grow from a startup into a thriving, successful company.Read More

Through the passage of the recent budget bill directed to providing COVID relief, Congress has also passed the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (the “CASE Act”), essentially creating a small claims “court” within the Copyright Office itself.Read More

The Supreme Court of the United States held unanimously in Romag Fasteners Inc. v. Fossil Inc., et al., 140 S. Ct. 1492 (2020) that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement suit does not have to prove willfulness for an award of defendant’s ill-gotten profits as damages under the Lanham Act.Read More

This article appeared in the Daily Business Review on July 28, 2020. Commentary provided by Eric C. Christu and Jodi-Ann Tillman. Read More

The USPTO has now extended patent deadlines another month for small and micro entities.Read More