Date: January 2021

Case Title and Date: The Black & Decker Corporation et al v. Positec USA Inc. et al., 2021WL202686 Facts:  Black & Decker in 1992 introduced bright yellow packaging for its DeWalt power tools.  It modified that packaging about 2008.  The packaging had a drawing of a power tool.  Black filed numbers of trademark applications on […]

The Director of the USPTO, Mr. Andrei Iancu, just released his list of accomplishments. I see no reference to the abandonment initiative that was discussed with INTA last year. I hear from contacts in the Examiner corps that the push goes on to adopt an expungement proceeding similar to the Canadian system. I do not […]

In the federal courts, Civil Contempt is governed by 18 U.SC. 401(3) that provides “A court of the United States shall have the power to punish by fine or imprisonment, at its discretion, such contempt of its authority, and none other, as … disobedience of resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree or […]

Note the changes to the PTO’s URL’S.

Protection of Trade Dress is a crucial part of IP protection for the sellers of goods. Over my 30-years I have litigated trademark diversion where a junior user was seeking to more customers from senior user to junior user by selling goods in packaging that imitated the senior user. I have also seen junior users […]