Photo of a puppy with a magnifying glass

Trademark Searching is Dead! Long Live Trademark Searching!

After 23 years, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is retiring its trademark electronic search system. Or, in government speak, the USPTO is retiring TESS. Supposedly, the retirement is not voluntary. TESS relies on a backend system and programming language that will no longer be supported. I don’t know about [...]
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Photo of Goo Goo Cluster store in Nashville

What a Cluster of a Trademark

Trivia time! Can you name the first candy bar in the United States to feature a collection of ingredients? Hint: It's made here in Nashville. Give up? It's the Goo Goo Cluster. Recently, a friend celebrated his birthday by planning some "tourist in your own town" activities. This included taking [...]
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Photo of Twitter X sign

X and The Risks of Rebranding

Last week, Randy wrote about some lurking trademark issues that could await Elon Musk as he rebrands Twitter to X. Musk’s decision shines a spotlight on the risks associated with rebranding. Not only can rebranding lead to a potential dispute with another trademark owner, as Randy discussed, but it can [...]
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Image of an X made of blue birds

Rebranding Spotlight: Transforming Twitter into X

After I heard that Elon Musk would rebrand Twitter as X, I did what many nerdy trademark lawyers did: I checked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database for any recent X trademark filings by Twitter or X Corp. I didn't find any, which is not necessarily unusual. Sometimes multinational [...]
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A real apple next to the Apple logo on a computer

Apple vs. APPLE – The Spectrum of Trademark Distinctiveness

During a recent discussion with a non-lawyer about trademarks, I explained the so-called “spectrum of trademark distinctiveness” and used APPLE as an example of an arbitrary mark. The person responded, “Wait, you can trademark that?”. The question caught me off guard since I assumed everyone knew that APPLE was arguably [...]
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