Trademarkology

By now you are no doubt familiar with the current college admissions scandal. After a few weeks of celebrities and other wealthy folks being embarrassed, being criminally charged, and pleading to those charges, a trademark issue finally surfaced in the popular press.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “PTO”) has proposed new rules that would require foreign trademark applicants and registrants to engage U.S. attorneys to prosecute applications, handle post-registration matters, and represent them before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Most marks are either trademarks (used in connection with goods) or service marks (used in connection with services). But there are a few other kinds of marks.

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted the U.S. government’s petition for a writ of certiorari in a case challenging provision of the federal trademark statute. In In re Brunetti, 877 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2017), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found the portion of the Lanham Act that proscribes registration of trademarks comprised of “immoral and scandalous matter” unconstitutional.