Near the beginning of the film The Hangover: Part II, the four friends are walking through the Los Angeles International Airport on their way to board a flight to Thailand for Stu’s bachelor party. Alan, Mr. Socially Awkward, is carrying an over- the-shoulder bag appearing to be a pricey and lavish Louis Vuitton. While waiting […]
Widerman Malek Law Blog
How to Trademark Brand Logo
How to Trademark Brand Logo If you are an avid trivia enthusiast like me you may have stumbled upon the popular website called sporcle.com. This website tests your trivia knowledge on an array of topics from geography to television. One quiz I recently took was called “Can you name the corporate logos?” I played and […]
Five Classic Examples of Trademark
What is a company trademark? “A trademark is any name, symbol, figure, letter, word, or mark adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant in order to designate his or her goods and to distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others.” – defined by dictionary.com. There are many different types of distinctive marks […]
Trade Dress Protection
Traditionally, trade dress was limited to the overall appearance of labels, wrappers, and containers used in packaging a product. However, over a period of years, the traditional definition expanded beyond packages and containers to include the total look of a product. Today, the total look includes the packaging, as well as the design, shape, size, […]
Protect Your Trademark from Infringement on Social Media Sites
In today’s web 2.0 world, it is even harder for companies to protect their trademarks. With more and more people interacting on these social media sites, we see more cases of trademark infringement. Many times the infringers are not even aware that what they are doing is illegal. For example, fans of a product or […]
There Is No Such Thing As A Complete Patent Search
By: Mark R. Malek My previous articles (see them here, here and here) have provided information on the requirements of disclosing prior art and about how to do some prior art searching. Many times, I am asked by a client to provide them a “complete” patent search that locates every piece of related prior art […]
Trademark Refusal – Likelihood of Confusion
I’ve filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register my trademark and I have received correspondence indicating that my registration of my applied for mark had been refused based upon a likelihood of confusion. What does this mean? One of the more popular rejections from the USPTO involves a […]
How Does a Franchise Work?
In 1955, a 65 year old man wearing a white suit to match his white hair and goatee took $105 out his social security to start franchising his fried chicken recipe. Less than ten years later, he had 600 franchisee restaurants selling his famous Kentucky Fried Chicken. This man was the legendary Colonel Harland Sanders. […]
You Cybersquatter! That’s My Domain Name
In the early 1990’s before the dot.com craze, a young entrepreneur named Ray Sozzi started his company Student Advantage. His company sold student advantage discount membership cards to the higher education market. In a stroke of genius or good fortune, he decided to secure several domain names for his business. One of the domain names […]
J. MASON WILLIAMS IV JOINS WIDERMAN MALEK, PL
October 25, 2012 Contact: Mark Malek FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tel. 321-255-2332 Email: mark@legalteamusa.com J. MASON WILLIAMS IV JOINS WIDERMAN MALEK, PL AS ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY Widerman Malek, PL is pleased to announce that J. Mason Williams IV has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney. Mason, a member of the Florida bar, graduated from […]
