Conair – a leading manufacturer of hair driers, hair curlers and other hair-care products – has filed two patent infringement lawsuits after attending a trade show in Las Vegas. It appears that two competitors, INF Professional and Le Angelique, had hair curling products displayed in their booths that Conair claims infringe one or more of its patents.
A U.S. District Court judge has upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision to cancel the Washington Redskins' trademark registrations, rejecting the argument that the federal government's ban on offensive trademarks is unconstitutional.
However, the Redskins will be able to continue to use its trademark while it works its way through the appellate process, which will likely take several years. We wonder if the team is working on a more politically correct name.
NetNames, a European brand protection company, has filed a complaint with EU antitrust regulators that Vox Populi, the company behind the controversial new ***.sucks domain names, is charging predatory pricing in an effort to extort money from trademark owners.
Where do we begin? What business would want “.sucks” as the suffix to its website? Unless, of course, it sold lolipops? Or vacuum cleaners?
Snack company Clif Bar has filed a trademark infringement suit against competitor Kill Cliff, claiming that Kill Cliff launched a line of protein bars that are likely to cause confusion among consumers. When we think about “Cliff,” Cliff Notes comes to mind, but that is another story for another day.
Clif Bar claims that Kill Cliff's protein bars are trading on Clif's reputation. You be the judge.
The Turtles (the 1960’s band) have asked the U.S. District court to block Sirius (the satellite radio broadcaster) from making a $210 million payment to ABKCO Music & Records, Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Warner Music Group to settle the ground-breaking copyright infringement lawsuit brought against them (and covered in our August 2014 Feature Article).