Trademark Enforcement Options – FAQ

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What are My Trademark Enforcement Options? Answer: Deciding on the right trademark enforcement options may seem pretty easy, but other options exist. While trademark owners are not required to sue all trademark infringers, not taking some type of action can weaken the trademark as a "source identifier" and weaken the value of the mark. Trademark Owners who fail to enforce their trademark entirely risk abandoning their rights to the mark. Deciding on your company's trademark enforcement procedure and policy can be very important. Settlement The most obvious alternative to litigation is settlement.  Settlement can be used as a trademark enforcement tool as well and is always an option. Owners of trademark and infringers may be able to agree to some form of concurrent trademark use where one party uses the trademark in one geographic area, and the other uses it somewhere else. Another option for settling a trademark dispute is for one party to license the rights to the other. Settlement agreements allow senior trademark user to...
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Limitation on Color Trademarks in the Fashion Industry

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In 1992, shoemaker Christian Louboutin began using red lacquer soles on some of its shoes.  In 2008, the red soles were registered as mark in the US Patent and Trademark Office, and on January 1, 2008, number 3, 361,597, the “red sole mark” came to life. In 2012 Louboutin sued Yves St. Laurent ("YSL").  They were seeing red  (pun intended) over the recent Yves St. Laurent 2011 Resort collection, which included red-soled shoes, the Louboutin signature brand detail.  Louboutin filed a trademark action against YSL, which YSL prominently countered with a counter-suit seeking cancellation of the Louboutin trademark registration.  Louboutin responded with a request for a  preliminary injunction temporarily preventing YSL from selling the shoes until the dispute was settled.  The district court initially denied Loboutin's request largely on the basis that . . ."in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition  . . . However, “Color alone “ sometimes ” may be protectable as a...
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Piercing the Corporate Veil in Minnesota

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The term “piercing the veil” is a reference to a method of holding a company or individual responsible for the liabilities of a corporation or other business entity despite the company being a separate corporate entity with limitations on its liability.  Saint Paul attorney Jack Roberts on his Minnesota Business & Real Estate Law Blog recently had a great post laying out many of the issues related to piercing the corporate veil and some sound advice on preventing it from happening. Jack’s article can be found here....
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Public Performance and Ringtones

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As if to demonstrate why the general public continues to question the validity of all copyright claims in music, ASCAP recently provided us with one of the stupidest and greediest copyright cases in the recent past. (opinion at www.eff.org). After being sued in relationship to the reasonableness of its blanket licenses (related to its antitrust exemption), ASCAP argued that when someone's cell phone rings with a musical ringtone, the ring is a public performance of the composition and therefore the phone companies owe licensing fees for each call. The Electronic Freedom Foundation, who filed an amicus brief in the case, noted that: “Under this reasoning from ASCAP, it would be a copyright violation for you to play your car radio with the window down!" While I am not sure it is quite this bad, the arguments advanced by ASCAP do require a great deal of legal gymanstics in order to work.While the law of copyright...
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Forum Selection in Creative Commons Licenses

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Users of Creative Common's licenses beware!Chang v. Virgin Mobile USA, LLC 2009 WL 111570 (N.D.Tex. January 16, 2009)Texas plaintiffs posted a photo to a popular picture sharing website using a Creative Commons licenses. The photo was then down loaded by an Australian company who used the photo inconsistent with the Creative Commons 2.o license and Plaintiff's wishes. Plaintiff sued Defendant in a Texas court and Defendant moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. While many factors were considered, of particular note is how to court pointed out that the license did not require the license to take place in Texas.In fact, the Creative Commons license used specifically does not contain either a forum selection clause or a choice of law clause that would outline where cases should be heard and under what state law a dispute will be analyzed. T he Creative Commons FAQ specifically notes that the selection of jurisdiction in the...
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Minimum Contacts in A Virtual World

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This article was orignally printed in Minnesota Bench & Bar (February 1998) Each month thousands of American businesses create new Internet sites in order to market and distribute products and services nationally or internationally. The ease of using the Internet for global marketing has struck down many of the previous financial and legal hurdles that companies were required to clear. Consequently, many businesses are rushing forward without considering the possibilities that they may be subjected to the jurisdiction of distant states or nations, and courts increasingly are finding that web pages create the minimum contacts necessary to exercise personal jurisdiction over distant defendants. Thus, the challenge for attorneys is to help businesses use this vibrant medium without being subjected to the jurisdiction of foreign states and countries. The rest of this article can be found at kunklelaw.net...
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