Trademark

It’s very common for non-lawyers (as well as lawyers who don’t focus their law practices on intellectual property) to mix up the different types of intellectual property—trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets. The purpose of this post is to provide the basic differences between trademarks (designed to identify the source of goods or services and avoid consumer confusion), copyrights (designed to protect creative expressive works), patents (designed to grant a limited monopoly for use of inventions and processes in exchange for public disclosure), and trade secrets (aimed to protect business secrets that provide a competitive advantage so long as reasonable measures are taken to maintain the secrets).

Another of the equitable defenses is called “unclean hands.” Although I mentioned the word in previous blog posts, it might be helpful to explain what it means in more detail. So, in this blog post, I’ll try to describe the concept of unclean hands in more detail.

I often hear business owners say that they they would eventually like to register their trademarks, but that they’re already protected because they have a filing entity or assumed name registered with the Texas Secretary of State. This is not true.

Another of the equitable defenses to trademark infringement is called “acquiescence,” and in this brief blog post and podcast episode, I will go over the elements of this defense to a trademark infringement claim.

Congratulations for registering your trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office! But, your USPTO journey is not over. After you get a trademark registration you have to do a few things to prevent the USPTO from cancelling the registration.

In this episode, I’ll try to describe the concept of “laches” in more detail.

If I own a bar, restaurant, or coffee shop what can I do if a former or current employee hosts a “reunion” party at a competitor’s establishment aimed at current and former employees and customers?