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There’s nothing sweet about false advertising litigation.  Unless of course, you are on the winning legal team, in which case victory is not only sweet but also very, very, very lucrative.  Just ask Mark Lanier, who recently was named “2012 Top Class Action Attorney” by U.S. News and World Report, and also serves as counsel …

Image from Pipeline Association for Public Awareness Why obey federal trademark law (aka the Lanham Act) when you can just pass a new law that exempts you from it?  Montana’s Senators sure are slick and I’m betting the Last Best Beef wishes it had a beef with any other State besides Montana! Instead of federally …

    Renee Baker authored a short poem, Families are Like Quilts (depicted above) in 1989.  It’s a lovely poem, really, about the ups and downs of families, something to which we all can relate.  The entire poem reads: Families are like quilts, Lives pieced together, Stitched with smiles & tears, Colored with memories, and Bound …

While we as a nation have shown little deference to the Native American indigenous people of North America, retailer Urban Outfitters has taken cultural insensitivity to new extremes.  Stomping on the nation’s culture is one thing, but ignoring their trademark rights?!?  Really, Urban Outfitters!  How low can you go?  It is pretty distasteful to sell …

The USPTO scores big with LINSANITY! As of today, no fewer than 8 US trademark registration applications have been filed at the USPTO to protect the mark LINSANITY.  (Note — I’m pretty sure that’s a fan site.)  I say no fewer than 8 because the PTO’s TESS database tends to lag about a week behind …

Are suing students doomed? If you paid $100,000.00 for law school & couldn’t find a job you’d want to find someone to sue, wouldn’t you?  But is that really a smart career move?  According to an article on CollegiateTimes, more than 70 students are suing 15 different law schools for falsely advertising their success at …

USPTO’s favorite child continues to get star treatment. I first wrote about Blue Ivy Carter in Geekview on January 29, 2012.  That was a mere three days after Beyonce’s licensing company, BGK Trademark Holdings, LLC (BGK) filed a trademark registration application with the USPTO to register BLUE IVY CARTER for goods in 15(!) International Classes, …

Holy Super Bowl®! To some folks these images are synonymous, at least on the holy day of Super Bowl Sunday.  The National Football League (NFL) takes football very seriously and it takes the Super Bowl even more so.  The NFL has 8 U.S. federal trademark registrations that include the word SUPER BOWL.  The oldest registration …

Fake flavor packets fuel legal fury. Tropicana — No pulp, but plenty of litigation.  In my 2012 Geekview New Year’s edition, I wrote about a federal class action lawsuit recently filed in New Jersey against Tropicana by Dennis Lynch for calling their not-from-concentrate/never-from-concentrate (“NFC”) juice “100% Pure & Natural.”  Meanwhile, across the country in California, a gal named …

  How on Earth did we manage before God invented Google alerts?  Google alerts are an awesome thing.  They provide me daily links to relevant news about intellectual property and other topics in which I am interested and they help me identify new sources for information (TMZ, anyone?). For example, a trademark infringement alert that …