Trademark Archives - Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.

The Washington Football Team vs. Trademark Squatters – The Sequel

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2021-08-04T23:38:18-04:00July 30th, 2021|Intellectual Property, Trademark|

On July 13, 2020, the era of the NFL's Washington Redskins ended (following pressure from the public and from corporate sponsors) and a new era began. Unfortunately, it was - and remains - an unnamed era. The team currently is called "The Washington Football Team" - it's better than "The Washington Insert Name Here" but not by much. Why the delay in getting a new name? Part of it could be related to the issues discussed in our article a year ago. Over the years, trademark applications have been filed for dozens of potential replacement team names. To protect its [...Read More...]

You Can’t Copyright That?

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2021-08-31T17:59:48-04:00March 31st, 2021|Copyright, Intellectual Property, Trademark|

Copyright law often isn't as well understood as, for example, criminal defense, or family law. Most people may know that if you write a book, perform a song, or take a photograph, you can obtain copyright protection for those works. But what about items that you can't protect through copyright? Here are some examples of items that aren't eligible for copyright protection: Ideas. To be eligible for copyright protection, works must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." This can be on paper, on a computer drive, etc. Ideas and concepts don't qualify. This can include business practices, [...Read More...]

Cease and Desist Letters – What Would Bill Murray Do?

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2020-09-30T10:49:03-04:00September 29th, 2020|Contracts, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Patent, Trade Secrets, Trademark|

In the world of intellectual property, the "Cease and Desist" letter is king. These are letters from attorneys for the owner of a work or invention, sent to an alleged infringer of the owner's intellectual property rights. The letters cite the legal basis for their claim, may threaten doom, destruction, and huge financial damages, and are often quite stern. Overly aggressive cease and desist letters can backfire. The Lumen Database website (originally chillingeffects.org) began as a project to track overzealous use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's enforcement mechanisms, spotlighting the most egregious examples of cease and desist letters. Such [...Read More...]

Washington Redskins vs. Native Americans & Trademark Squatters

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2020-09-29T23:33:20-04:00July 30th, 2020|Intellectual Property, Trademark|

For almost 30 years, the NFL's Washington Redskins were involved in litigation over their team name. They recently decided to change the name, but they may now have to battle trademark squatters who have scooped up rights to likely replacement names. The Washington Redskins have been using the team name since 1933, and registered variations of the trademark starting in 1967. In 1992, Native American activist Suzan Harjo and other plaintiffs filed a petition to cancel six trademark registrations owned by the Redskins' parent company, Pro-Football, Inc., on the grounds that the name "Redskins" was offensive to Native Americans. They [...Read More...]

Netflix and the Air Force Battle for Space (Force)

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2021-06-29T14:56:47-04:00June 29th, 2020|Intellectual Property, Trademark|

In a story that would make a screenwriter jealous, it seems that the newly-minted U.S. Space Force may have lost trademark rights in the term "Space Force" to Netflix. On June 18, 2018, President Trump announced the U.S. Space Force which came to life on December 20, 2019, with the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, as a division of the Air Force. Netflix debuted its "Space Force" comedy series on May 29, 2020. The problem for the Air Force is that Netflix filed its earliest trademark application for "Space Force" on August 2, 2018, in Jamaica. [...Read More...]

Copyright Law Doesn’t “Heart” New York

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2021-08-24T10:31:12-04:00May 29th, 2020|Copyright, Intellectual Property, Trademark|

Why is the famous "I [heart] New York" logo protected by trademark and not copyright? At first glance, you'd think that it's artwork, and therefore can be protected by copyright. However, the Copyright Act protects "original works of authorship." The "I [heart] New York" logo is simply the phrase "I love New York", with the word "love" replaced by a red heart. As the Supreme Court held in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., [t]he sine qua non of copyright is originality. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author. … Original, as [...Read More...]

The KosherSwitch Patent: Protecting malfunction by design

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2019-12-27T19:19:49-05:00December 27th, 2019|Intellectual Property, Patent, Trademark|

Here's a challenge for these modern times: How do observant Jews follow the Biblical commandment to observe the Sabbath? Rabbis generally agree that driving is prohibited, and that using electricity is not prohibited - but using switches to manually turn the flow of electricity on or off is prohibited. This is why you may have seen refrigerators or ovens with a "Sabbath mode", which prevents certain functions from working on the Sabbath. By contrast, light switches don't have such a mode; they are either on or off. Which brings us to the KosherSwitch and the concept of random chance. In [...Read More...]

No, You Can’t Trademark “OK Boomer”

Joshua D. Waterston, Esq.2020-10-30T15:00:26-04:00November 20th, 2019|Intellectual Property, Trademark|

You may have heard that the generational battle between "milennials" and "baby boomers" now has a catch phrase: "OK Boomer". It's a dismissive phrase by those darn youngsters who are loitering on your lawn and forgetting to pull up their pants. I'm kidding about the loitering and the pants, but the catchphrase is a real thing, and it's also become a meme. If you don't know what a meme is, then chances are that you're a boomer and may be more interested in other articles on this site instead. But I digress. "OK Boomer" has become so popular that there's [...Read More...]