Seattle Trademark Lawyer

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Mike Atkins at the Seattle Trademark Lawyer has an interesting post — click here for the post — about a pending Chinese trademark infringement suit, in which plaintiff seeks monetary damages and a public apology to be published in newspapers. IP Dragon follows up Atkins’s post, explaining that an apology is a Chinese trademark remedy and that an apology is a punishment in a “face saving culture,” as IP Dragon describes China and Japan, the nationalities of the two entities involved in the suit. Click here for IP Dragon’s post.
But punishment or not, this raises an interesting question for US trademark law. It seems to me that a public apology (or acknowledgement of the infringement) would be a more powerful tool for the consumers that trademark law intends to protect than just monetary damages and an injunction. An acknowledgement of the infringement would warn consumers who might still unwittingly purchase items based upon the infringing marks after the injunction is in place. Maybe it is time to amend the Lanham Act.
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Continue Reading Should Apologies be Added to Trademark Damages?

The Northern District had 72 trademark cases filed during the first half of 2008. That is well on the way to meeting or exceeding 2007’s total of 138 cases — click here to read about the 2007 case filings. So, it looks like, as with patents, the Northern District continues to have an active trademark infringement docket. A difficult economy is not slowing the Northern District’s IP cases.
Thanks to Mike Atkins at the Seattle Trademark Lawyer for the idea of a mid-year status report. Expect a similar copyright mid-year report shortly.
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Continue Reading Northern District’s 2008 Trademark Infringment Filings Strong

Patent Appeal Tracer has a great post listing the patent filings for June 2008 by district. Tracer used Pacer and “math” to come up with its list, which shows that the Northern District is fourth in patent filings for the month with 19 of 255 filings (about 85 of the total). Those 19 filings give the Northern District 87 patent cases in the first half of 2008, well on the way to another busy year. The top three were not surprising:
1. Eastern District of Texas — 32 filings
2. District of Delaware — 24 filings
3. Central District of California — 20 filings
Patent Appeal Tracer also mentions EZ4Media’s two Northern District cases against thirteen defendants as cases to watch. The defendants in those cases are alleged to infringe patents to wireless streaming of digital media.
[UPDATE:] More on the year’s trademark and copyright filings is coming next week, prompted by Mike Graham’s Seattle Trademark Lawyer post about this year’s Western District of Washington trademark litigation statistics — click here to read it. Thanks for the mention Mike.
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Continue Reading Northern District Continues as a Top Five Patent District

Blawg Review #162 is now available at the China Law Blog. This week’s review is a bit light on IP links, except for Mike Atkin’s Seattle Trademark Lawyer post detailing a potential trademark dispute involving coffee and roller derby — click here for the post. Despite that (or maybe because of it), it is a great read. And if you are looking for good information on Chinese business law, the China Law Blog is one of the best.
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Continue Reading Blawg Review #162

Shortly after my Friday post updating the list of regional IP blogs, Mark Walters, of the Washington State Patent Law Blog, pointed out that I had left him off the list. The mistake was unintentional and I have remedied it in the original post and the list that follows this paragraph. In the process of gathering links to revise my list, I came across the Georgia Patent Law Blog in the Washington State Patent Law Blog’s blogroll. So, now I have two blogs to update:
Australian Trademarks Law Blog*
Canadian Trademark Blog
Delaware IP Law Blog
E. D. Texas Blog
Florida IP Blog*
Georgia Patent Law Blog (N.D. Georgia)
Illinois Trial Pratice Weblog (okay, it is not IP specific, but it is regional and provides excellent content)
IP Dragon(China)
IP Legal Lounge
Las Vegas Trademark Attorney
Los Angeles Intellectual Property Trademark Attorney Blog
Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog*
Patent Trademark Blog(some Orange County focus)
Seattle Trademark Lawyer Blog
Tech Law Forum Blog (N.D. Cal.)
Washington State Patent Law Blog
If you know of other regional IP blogs, post a comment or send me an email and I will add them to the list.
*These are blogs developed and hosted by LexBlog just like this Blog.
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Continue Reading More Regional Blog Updates

Since my last post listing the Blog’s “cousin” blogs — regional IP blogs – another has joined the family. The Los Angeles Intellectual Property Trademark Attorney Blog, published by Milord & Associates. Welcome to the family. Here is the revised list:
Australian Trademarks Law Blog*
Canadian Trademark Blog
Delaware IP Law Blog
E. D. Texas Blog
Florida IP Blog*
Illinois Trial Pratice Weblog (okay, it is not IP specific, but it is regional and provides excellent content)
IP Dragon(China)
IP Legal Lounge
Las Vegas Trademark Attorney
Los Angeles Intellectual Property Trademark Attorney Blog
Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog*
Patent Trademark Blog(some Orange County focus)
Seattle Trademark Lawyer Blog
Tech Law Forum Blog (N.D. Cal.)
If you know of other regional IP blogs, post a comment or send me an email and I will add them to the list. A hat tip to Mike Atkins for pointing out the new blog at his Seattle Trademark Lawyer blog.
*These are blogs developed and hosted by LexBlog just like this Blog.
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Continue Reading New Regional IP Blogs

Several unrelated legal stories that are worth a read:
An excellent Illinois Business Law Journal article regarding whether Google is losing its trademark to genericide. It concludes that Google’s mark is relatively safe, partly because Google’s trademark is identical to its domain name.*
Patent Troll Tracker has been unmasked. The unmasking was based, at least in part, on Ray Niro’s bounty for Troll Tracker’s name. As would be expected, Troll Tracker unmasked himself with class and a sense of humor. He is taking a few weeks off from blogging to decide whether to continue. I hope he decides to continue. Troll Tracker is a powerful voice on some complex issues, and he is right that it is great to see another inhouse legal blogger. Plus, it would be a shame for Troll Tracker to disappear just after Ron Coleman finally discovered him.
Blawg Review #148 is up at Blawg IT. In addition to the usual links to law blog posts, Brett helps us smell the electronic roses with numerous non-legal video clips.
* Hat tip to Michael Atkins at the Seattle Trademark Blog for pointing out the article during his Trademark Dilution Weekend.
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Continue Reading IP News Roundup

Congress enacted the Trademark Dilution Revision Act (the “TDRA”) about one year ago in an effort to resolve numerous open trademark issue.* Many believe that the TDRA has opened more questions than it answered. The University of Michigan Law Review’s First Impressions blog recently addressed those issues with a series of articles:
Dilution’s (Still) Uncertain Future
Graeme Dinwoodie, Chicago-Kent College of Law
Mark Janis, University of Iowa College of Law
Looking at the litigation history of trademark dilution.
What is Dilution, Anyway?
Stacey Dogan, Northeastern University School of Law
Considering the underlying meaning of dilution.
The Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006: A Welcome — and Needed — Change
Dale Cendali & Bonnie Schriefer, O’Melveny & Myers LLP
Explaining why the TDRA clarifies and strengthens First Amendment protections.
The Dilution Solution: Populating the Trademark A-list
Scott Wilcox, University of Michigan Law School
Looking at the court as arbiters of fame.
* For more on the TDRA, click here for the Blog’s archives and click here for the Seattle Trademark Lawyer’s coverage of the TDRA’s first anniversary.
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Continue Reading A Look at the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006