The Trademark Reporter's 2019 "Annual Review of U.S. Trademark Cases"

The Trademark Reporter has published its latest Annual Review of U.S. Trademark Cases: "The Seventy-First Year of Administration of the Lanham Act of 1946," by Theodore H. Davis, Jr. and yours truly, John L. Welch. (download pdf here).

In his Introduction, Ted Davis ponders the ramifications of the Brunetti case should the Supreme Court rule, as did the Federal Circuit, that the Section 2(a) prohibition on scandalous marks is a "content-discriminatory mechanism unable to survive intermediate scrutiny." Will such a holding affect other content-based provisions of Section 2? He explains why he thinks the answer is no.

Ted finds a number of TTAB decisions to be of interest, and particularly the Board's refusal to recuse itself in a cancellation proceeding involving registrations for the mark TRUMP, in which registrations the President has an interest. Chief Judge Rogers stepped in to pen that opinion.

* * * * * * * * Once again I thank The Trademark Reporter for granting leave to provide a link to this issue, which is Copyright © 2019 the International Trademark Association and reprinted with the permission of The Trademark Reporter®, 109 TMR 1 (January-February 2019).

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Text Copyright John L. Welch 2019.