Fashion and IP Roundup – Recent Cases Provide Tips That Can "Make or Break" the Winning Strategy
Three recent skirmishes involving fashion brand owners and their non-traditional marks provide strategy tips for those looking to defend their brands against alleged copycats. This past year, the "red sole" trademark owned by designer Christian Louboutin, the trade dress of the "Clyde" bag by designer Monica Botkier, and the Adidas "four stripe" design on sneakers were all favorably enforced against perceived infringers.
USPTO Increases Fees, More Fee Adjustments to Come
On October 5, 2012, the USPTO implemented a modest fee increase. The USPTO is also contemplating a more comprehensive fee adjustment based on the AIA, which would increase the large entity fees for a utility patent application by approximately 27%, decrease the large entity issue fee by approximately 46% and increase the three maintenance fees are increasing by approximately 43%. These further fee adjustments are expected to be implemented before the first-to-file crossover date of March 16, 2013.
Legislative Update – What's Next for Protection of Fashion Design in the United States?
Recent legislation introduced in both houses of Congress propose amendments to the Copyright Act that would provide protections for original elements and arrangements of fashion designs.
Changing Induced Infringement: The Federal Circuit's Akamai/McKesson Decision
In the combined decision of Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc. and McKesson Technologies, Inc. v. Epic Systems Corporation, 2012 WL 3764695 (Fed. Cir. 2012), the Federal Circuit en banc changed the law on induced infringement. The court overruled its prior decision in BMC Resources, Inc. v. Paymentech, L.P., 498 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2007), and held that to prove direct infringement as a prong of induced infringement, a single party (or those under its direction or control) no longer needs to practice all of the steps in a method claim. Instead, for induced infringement, the direct infringement element may be satisfied by multiple parties practicing all of the steps in a method claim.
Chain Reaction
Jacqueline Levasseur Patt, Justin E. Pierce and Elissa Brockbank Reese published "Chain Reaction" in the October 2012 edition of Intellectual Property Magazine.
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Marketing to Teens: Not All Fun and Games
Gregory J. Sater and Amy Ralph Mudge published "Marketing to Teens: Not All Fun and Games" in the October 2012 edition of electronicRETAILER.
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