KMK Law Intellectual Property Blog

This morning, we awoke to the news that the U.K. has voted to exit the European Union. Our first thought was whether this vote, and the expected unwinding of the U.K. from the European legal system, will have any impact on our clients’ European intellectual property rights in the U.K.

Another day, another case of a company not bothering to see how its new trademark translates into the native languages of its intended consumers.

In a landmark decision, released (coincidentally?) on the first day of the International Trademark Association’s Annual Meeting, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League, that the NFL’s licensing activities are covered by Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act which prohibits “every contract, combination in the form of a trust or otherwise, or, conspiracy, in restraint of trade.”  As a result, the NFL will now be required to demonstrate, on remand, that such activities comport with the so-called “Rule of Reason.”

Since we created an Evolving Media & Technology Team here at KMK, I have been telling brand owners to proactively manage their presence on Facebook by creating an official, corporate, Facebook page and strategically selecting the fan pages and copycat pages to shut down.  After yet another “update” to its site late last week, Facebook has now made this kind of brand management exponentially more difficult for trademark owners.