Defendant has demonstrated that he, and not plaintiff, was the owner of the NIC OUT trademark for a mechanical cigarette filter designed to remove nicotine from cigarettes, at the time plaintiff applied for registration of the NIC OUT mark, and ...

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Judge T.S. Ellis III U.S. District Court - Eastern District

An Alexandria U.S. District Court agreed with defendant Native Americans that plaintiffs’ registered trademarks for the Washington Redskins professional football team “may disparage” a composite of Native American people who contend the Redskins name is a racial slur, and the ...

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Judge Gerald Bruce Lee U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In this ongoing dispute by the proprietors of Mimosa I restaurant in Winchester and defendants, who allegedly took over plaintiffs’ business after an initial investment, a Harrisonburg U.S. District Court says plaintiffs have stated claims for trademark infringement and for ...

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

In this patent infringement suit filed by Australian companies against defendants including one located in Michigan, a Richmond U.S. District Court weighs the factors favoring the Eastern District of Virginia versus the Eastern District of Michigan, and grants motions to ...

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Judge Robert E. Payne U.S. District Court - Eastern District

An engineer-inventor may sue defendant Patent and Trademark Office for a declaration that the PTO has unreasonably delayed final agency action on 80 of his 300 pending patent applications, originally filed in the months prior to June 8, 1995; the ...

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Judge T.S. Ellis III U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In this suit alleging the design of a high-rise apartment building in McLean, Va., infringes on plaintiff architectural firm’s copyright for a condominium building in Minneapolis, the 4th Circuit upholds summary judgment for defendant design firm. Plaintiff Humphreys & Partners ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Intellectual Property Judge Allyson K. Duncan

Defendants, a furniture manufacture, a leather industry trade association and its laboratory and lab director, win summary judgment in a false advertising suit filed by a furniture covering designer that alleged defendants’ advertisements and statements referencing a “bonded leather” product ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Intellectual Property Judge Allyson K. Duncan

A Virginia-based R&B singer/songwriter “DeRico” gets another chance to make his copyright infringement case against Usher and Justin Bieber who recorded several versions of plaintiff’s “Somebody to Love” song; the 4th Circuit reverses dismissal of the songwriters’ suit, saying a ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Intellectual Property Judge Pamela A. Harris

The 4th Circuit vacates an injunction to halt a foundation’s use of “NAACP,” the trademark of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to represent an anti-abortion message about the “National Association for the Abortion of Colored People”; ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Intellectual Property Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

The 4th Circuit upholds an order requiring a “dissatisfied applicant in an ex parte trademark proceeding” to pay attorney’s fees and expenses of $36,320.49, including salary expenses of PTO attorneys and a paralegal, to the director of the Patent and ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Intellectual Property Judge Paul V. Niemeyer