News

Trademark protection is essential for protecting your brand. Not only does a trademark differentiate your goods for services from those of others, but it also allows you to build goodwill with consumers through the trademark’s association with superior quality products or services. As such, you want to make sure that you pick a trademark that will offer your brand the most protection possible. Not all trademarks are equal; some offer stronger protection than others. An Alabama trademark lawyer can help you select and register a trademark that will deliver the protection your brand needs. 

Two of the premier athletic and lifestyle brands on the planet — “athleisure” wear retailer Lululemon and exercise equipment maker Peloton — are locking horns over product designs, and that fight has now spilled over into court. In early November, Lululemon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Peloton stating that it would sue Peloton unless Peloton stopped selling “copy-cat” Lululemon products. On November 29, Lululemon made good on its promise, suing Peloton for patent infringement and arguing that the designs for some of its leggings and sports bras infringed six of Lululemon’s design patents. Brush up on the case with the help of an Alabama intellectual property lawyer below. 

The Trademark Modernization Act (TMA) was passed in December 2020 and is slated to go into effect on December 18 of this year. Rather than making sweeping, substantive changes to trademark law, the TMA is intended to give the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) new avenues for removing unused or fraudulent trademark registrations from the federal trademark register. Such registrations add “dead weight” to the trademark register and can prevent legitimate trademark applicants from registering their marks. Among other provisions, the TMA does this by creating two new procedures for challenging unused trademark registrations: ex parte expungement and ex parte reexamination. If you are having difficulty registering your trademark due to an existing, unused registration, please contact an Alabama trademark lawyer. 

Patent infringement, broadly speaking, occurs where a party makes, sells, uses, offers to sell, or imports into the United States a product that is covered by a patent. Such actions can cause significant economic loss to the holder of the patent at issue because it deprives him or her of the opportunity to license the patent and to receive the profits from selling the product at issue. The purpose of a patent infringement lawsuit for the plaintiff, therefore, is to recover those losses in court through a damages award. There are several types of damages available in patent infringement actions, but the most common are reasonable royalties and lost profits, as an Alabama patent litigation attorney explains. 

For many businesses, trademarks are their most valuable intellectual property assets. And it’s easy to see why; trademarks identify your brand to consumers and distinguish it from those of others. If you have created a valuable product that is wildly successful in the marketplace — even in the absence of patent protection — your trademark will be similarly valuable. But because trademarks arise and remain in force through use, it is possible to inadvertently lose your trademark rights if you are not careful. An Alabama trademark lawyer explains how below.