Duckhorn Vineyards is suing Trinchero Family Estates over trademark infringement of their wine brand. Trinchero Family Estates recently paired up with A&E’s reality television family, Duck Dynasty, to produce a new wine called Duck Commander. Duckhorn argues their new wine brand infringes upon their already well established 30 year old brand causing consumer confusion. Is […]
Who doesn’t want to drive a luxury Bentley automobile? A car good enough to drive around the Queen of England, is certainly a car that is highly desired. But alas, the average American cannot afford the $200,000 price tag that comes with purchasing a Bentley. This is exactly why people jumped at the chance to […]
Trademarks can be so confusing. Is it ok to use the same trademark as someone else? A detailed analysis must be conducted before answering such a question. A great example of the type of analysis that occurs in trademark law can be found in the movie Coming to America.
Smartphone word games popularity has exploded but is it because of their similarity to already existing word board games? The Mattel toymaker would argue this is indeed the case. They filed a lawsuit against Zynga for using a brand name too closely resembling their own. They argue that Zynga’s “Scramble with Friends” online word game […]
I have been receiving a multitude of questions lately about use of NFL logos. I do give these folks a lot of credit for asking an attorney before moving forward with their ideas of using NFL logos. Most of these folks are asking whether or not they can put NFL logos on certain things and […]
If there is one reason to file for trademark protection, a reason that probably plays at least some roll in all trademark patent applications, it is in one short word, money. If there is one industry that is very invested in the amount of revenue it brings in, its professional sports and in our case, […]
A new wave of “pop” trademark infringement has been keeping the legal teams at some of the nations biggest drug companies busy. Who would of thought that the abuse of prescription drugs would become a hot way to market a product at high end retailers and restaurants but that is exactly what is currently happening […]
There is “Words With Friends”, “Scramble With Friends”, and now “Bang With Friends”? One of these is not like the others. Sure all are internet applications (apps) that can be downloaded to your smartphone or tablet, but only two are created by the popular gaming company Zynga. The third, “Bang With Friends” or BWF, is […]
A domain name may be thought of as a human-readable address for a host computer that is accessible through the Internet. You probably recognize many of these domain names practically as household words: www.google.com, www.craigslist.org, www.legalteamusa.net. (Hey, I had to try.) Cybersquatting refers to the practice of registering a domain name on the Internet for […]
