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As some of you may know, April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day. Today is the day set aside to raise awareness of trademarks, Copyrights, patents, and trade secrets, and how they impact and affect our daily lives. April 26 was chosen because it was the day WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization) was entered…

In an extremely long opinion, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) affirmed a refusal to register Apple’s SMART KEYBOARD trademark based on genericness for “Accessory for a handheld mobile digital device, namely, a protective and decorative cover for a tablet computer that functions as a computer stand and incorporates a keyboard” on the Supplemental…

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a rule that a proposed trademark consisting of a generic term (e.g. “computer” for computers) and a generic top-level domain (“TLD”) (like .com) is automatically generic. That decision was previously blogged about here: https://t-rexlaw.com/supreme-court-rules-booking-dot-yeah/, and the decision looked closely at whether the domain name Booking.com was intrinsically…

Trying to register a trademark for cannabis-related goods and services? Be careful what you apply for. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) recently issued a decision that continues the trend of not allowing registration of trademarks that cover cannabis-related goods or services. On a basic level, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) refuses…