A trademark is a word, phrase, or logo that identifies the source of goods or services. Trademark law protects a business' commercial identity or brand by discouraging other businesses from adopting a name or logo that is "confusingly similar" to an existing trademark. The goal is to allow consumers to easily identify the producers of goods and services and avoid confusion.
In common law countries such as the United Kingdom, the Philippines and New Zealand, passing off is a common law tort which can be used to enforce unregistered trade mark rights. The tort of passing off protects the goodwill of a trader from misrepresentation.
Trademark dilution is a trademark law concept giving the owner of a famous trademark standing to forbid others from using that mark in a way that would lessen its uniqueness. In most cases, trademark dilution involves an unauthorized use of another's trademark on products that do not compete with, and have little connection with, those of the trademark owner. For example, a famous trademark used by one company to refer to hair care products might be diluted if another company began using a similar mark to refer to breakfast cereals or spark plugs.
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d),(passed as part of Pub.L. 106–113 ) is a U.S. law enacted in 1999 that established a cause of action for registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, a trademark or personal name. The law was designed to thwart "cybersquatters" who register Internet domain names containing trademarks with no intention of creating a legitimate web site, but instead plan to sell the domain name to the trademark owner or a third party. Critics of the ACPA complain about the non-global scope of the Act and its potential to restrict free speech, while others dispute these complaints. Before the ACPA was enacted, trademark owners relied heavily on the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA) to sue domain name registrants. The FTDA was enacted in 1995 in part with the intent to curb domain name abuses. The legislative history of the FTDA specifically mentions that trademark dilution in domain names was a matter of Congressional concern motivating the Act. Senator Leahy stated that "it is my hope that this anti-dilution statute can help stem the use of deceptive Internet addresses taken by those who are choosing marks that are associated with the products and reputations of others".
United Kingdom trade mark law provides protection for the use of trade marks in the UK. A trade mark is a way for one party to distinguish themselves from another. In the business world, a trade mark provides a product or organisation with an identity which cannot be imitated by its competitors.
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of an article of manufacture. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers and computer icons are examples of objects that are covered by design patents.
Canadian trademark law provides protection to marks by statute under the Trademarks Act and also at common law. Trademark law provides protection for distinctive marks, certification marks, distinguishing guises, and proposed marks against those who appropriate the goodwill of the mark or create confusion between different vendors' goods or services. A mark can be protected either as a registered trademark under the Act or can alternately be protected by a common law action in passing off.
The Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 is a United States federal law which protects famous trademarks from uses that dilute their distinctiveness, even in the absence of any likelihood of confusion or competition. It went into effect on January 16, 1996. This act has been largely supplanted by the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 (TDRA), signed into law on October 6, 2006.
The Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 is a United States federal law that amended the federal criminal code to make it a federal offense to violate the Lanham Act by the intentional use of a counterfeit trademark or the unauthorized use of a counterfeit trademark. The act established penalties of up to five years imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine for selling or attempting to sell counterfeit goods or services. It increased such penalties for a second or subsequent conviction under the Act.
A moron in a hurry is a phrase that has been used in legal cases, especially in the UK, involving trademark infringement and passing off. Where one party alleges that another has infringed their intellectual property rights by offering for sale a product that is confusingly similar to their own, the court has to decide whether a reasonable person would be misled by the defendant's trademark or the get-up of their product. It has been held that "if only a moron in a hurry would be misled" the case is not made out. Although this formulation addresses only fairly extreme instances of confusibility, and says nothing about less clear examples, the phrase is sometimes referred to as a "test".
A trademark is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. Trademarks used to identify services are sometimes called service marks.
Lamparello v. Falwell, 420 F.3d 309, was a legal case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit concerning allegations of cybersquatting and trademark infringement. The dispute centered on the right to use the domain name fallwell.com, and provides discussion on cybersquatting as it applies to criticism of a trademark.
Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees. Infringement may occur when one party, the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers. An owner of a trademark may commence civil legal proceedings against a party which infringes its registered trademark. In the United States, the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 criminalized the intentional trade in counterfeit goods and services.
Arsenal Football Club vs. Matthew Reed is a trademark infringement case concerning the sale of unlicensed Arsenal Football Club merchandise.
Network Automation, Inc. v. Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc., 638 F.3d 1137 was a court case decided on March 8, 2011, where the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the use of a competitor's trademark as an Internet search advertising keyword did not constitute trademark infringement. In the case, Network Automation advertised their own competing product in search queries that contained Advanced Systems Concepts' "ActiveBatch" trademark. In determining whether trademark infringement occurred, the court evaluated factors relevant to the likelihood of customer confusion outlined in AMF Inc. v. Sleekcraft Boats and concluded that confusion was unlikely.
Under Canadian trade-mark law, "confusion" is where a trade-mark is similar enough to another trade-mark to cause consumers to equate them. Likelihood of confusion plays a central role in trade-mark registration, infringement and passing-off. Whether a trade-mark or trade-name is confusing is a question of fact. The role of confusion in trade-mark law is analogous to the role of substantial infringement in patent law.
Consumer confusion is a state of mind that leads to consumers making imperfect purchasing decisions or lacking confidence in the correctness of their purchasing decisions.
Ugg boots trademark disputes are the disputes between some footwear manufacturers, as to whether "ugg" is a protected trademark, or a generic term and thus ineligible for trademark protection. In Australia and New Zealand, where "Ugg" is a generic term for the style of footwear, 702 registered trademarks include the term "Ugg" in various logos and designs. By contrast, UGG is a registered trademark of the California-based company Deckers Outdoor Corporation in over 130 countries worldwide, including the U.S., the European Union, and China.
Microsoft Corp. v. Shah was an Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) case heard before the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Microsoft sued the defendants, Amish Shah and others, for, among other charges, contributory cybersquatting for encouraging others, through videos and software, to infringe on Microsoft's trademarks. The case was settled out of court in July 2011 after judge Ricardo S. Martinez denied Shah's motion for dismissal. Legal observers suggested that, if upheld, the case would prove notable for the court's expansion of the ACPA liability to include contributory cybersquatting.
Design is a form of intellectual property right concerned with the visual appearance of articles which have commercial or industrial use. The visual form of the product is what is protected rather than the product itself. The visual features protected are the shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation. A design infringement is where a person infringes a registered design during the period of registration. The definition of a design infringement differs in each jurisdiction but typically encompasses the purported use and make of the design, as well as if the design is imported or sold during registration. To understand if a person has infringed the monopoly of the registered design, the design is assessed under each jurisdiction's provisions. The infringement is of the visual appearance of the manufactured product rather than the function of the product, which is covered under patents. Often infringement decisions are more focused on the similarities between the two designs, rather than the differences.
