NFTs, Source Identification, and the Power of Unfair Competition Law
As copyright protections expire, many creators and businesses are left wondering what recourse exists when their original works are used without permission in new formats—especially in emerging digital ecosystems like NFTs. While copyright law has a limited duration and stricter originality requirements, unfair competition law, including trademark and trade dress principles, provides ongoing protection that can be leveraged in ways copyright cannot. This is especially relevant in the context of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), where the source-identifying function of the digital asset becomes critical. NFTs as Indicators of Source or Authenticity In essence, an NFT (non-fungible token) can serve as… [read more]
Trademarks: Building and Protecting Your Brand
Trademarks are essential tools for building and protecting a brand’s identity in the marketplace. This blog entry explores the fundamentals of trademarks, including their types, the registration process, benefits of trademark protection, and effective methods of communicating trademark rights. What is a Trademark? A trademark is a source indicator: a distinctive sign, symbol, word, phrase, logo, or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of goods or services in the marketplace. Trademarks serve as a badge of origin, allowing consumers to easily identify and choose products or services from a particular source. Types of Trademarks Word Marks: Brand names or… [read more]
The Value of Intent to Use
There are some good reasons to file a trademark application based on the Intent to Use a mark in commerce. Even if you’re not using the mark yet, once the application registers, your priority date will be the filing date of your application — not the date that you first start using it. So, if you file today based on the intent to use, but you don’t use the mark until next year, your priority date would be the filing date. If there were no Intent to Use application and you started using the mark the next year, your priority… [read more]
Money, Intent to Use, Statements of Use, and Trademark Applications
I had a client recently reach out about issues with investing in packaging and materials before knowing if the mark for the product itself might be deemed confusingly similar with another mark on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) register. For a variety of reasons, there’s a real advantage to knowing your mark has cleared an Examining Attorney before investing heavily in a brand. And one of the ways to avoid that issue is to file for protection based on the bona fide Intent to Use a mark in commerce. When you file based on Intent to Use,… [read more]
When It Comes to Correspondences, Trust Your Lawyer
Once you file documents like a trademark application, it’s important to know and remember that your contact information from the application is added to a public database — and that makes you and/or your business the potential target of scam artists. This is true whether you file in the United States, Europe, China, or elsewhere. The scams vary: Some of them use the same tactics as other junk mailers, like using the phrase “time sensitive.” Others send invoices from companies you never did business with, with the fine print disclosing that the fee is for appearing in a registry that… [read more]
Protection of Your Domain Name, #Hashtags & Online Handles
When considering your organization’s intellectual property protection plan, special attention should be given to the issue of domain names and social media. Domain names, hashtags, and social media handles can be used to immediately separate you from the rest of the businesses and people online. It’s important to remember, the same rules apply to domain names, hashtags, and social media handles as to the word portion of the domain name itself, for example. That’s because a domain extension commonly signifies the type of entity using the domain name and adding the hash symbol (#) to an otherwise unregisterable mark generally… [read more]
