Source: https://www.uspatent.com/category/blogs/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 16:42:02+00:00

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When registering a trademark, the Patent and Trademark Office requires the submission of a specimen to show that a trademark is being used in interstate commerce. It is often tempting to simply submit a screenshot of a webpage showing the trademark and the products associated with that trademark as a specimen. However, as shown in a recent Federal Circuit decision made precedential, care must be taken when using a webpage as a specimen for goods associated with a trademark to ensure that the webpage is likely to be acceptable.
In the case, In re Siny Corp., 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 10499 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 10, 2019), the Applicant filed an application for the mark CASALANA for a knit fabric used to make outerwear, gloves, and apparel. The specimen submitted for this trademark was a screenshot of a webpage that included the trademark along with a picture and a description of the fabric, as well as a phone number and an email address to contact for sales information. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Examining Attorney and the TTAB’s decision to refuse registration, stating that the webpage was just advertising material and failed to show use of the mark in commerce for the listed products. It is important to note that this decision specifically pertains to a specimen for goods and that webpages are more readily accepted as specimens for services.
A trademark is used in commerce when it is placed directly on goods or placed on the containers, displays, tags or labels associated with the goods. A trademark included on a webpage may qualify as a “display” associated with goods shown on the webpage. However, a webpage simply advertising the goods used in connection with the trademark is not sufficient to qualify as a display, and is therefore not an acceptable specimen. In order to be an acceptable specimen, the webpage must act as a point of sale location for the products.
As shown by the decision in Siny, showing only a phone number or an email address as contact information for ordering products associated with the trademark may not be enough to make the webpage a point of sale location. Instead, a webpage submitted as a specimen should either make the goods available for purchase directly through the webpage or display additional information other than just contact information that would be considered essential to a purchasing decision. Examples of this additional information include prices or a range of prices for the goods, sizing information, the quantity of the goods that may be ordered, how to pay for the product, and how the product will be shipped.
This decision by the Federal Circuit doesn’t mean that webpages cannot be used as a specimen for a trademark application covering goods. Instead, an Applicant should make sure that when using a webpage as a specimen for a trademark application, the webpage includes as much information as possible about the nature of the goods and includes specific information on how to purchase the goods associated with the trademark. Following these guidelines should lead to an acceptable specimen.
On March 4, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision regarding the requirement for copyright registration prior to filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement. In the unanimous opinion authored by Justice Ginsburg, the Court settled a split in Circuit Court decisions regarding whether the “registration . . . has been made” requirement under 17 U.S.C. §411(a) is satisfied merely by the filing for copyright registration or is only satisfied by the Copyright Office’s act of granting registration. The Court, settling on the latter, held registration occurs—and a copyright claimant may commence an infringement suit—when the Copyright Office registers a copyright. And, upon registration of the copyright, the copyright owner may recover for infringement that occurred both before and after registration.
While there are some exceptions to this rule (e.g., a copyright owner who is preparing to distribute a work of a type vulnerable to predistribution infringement—e.g., a move or musical composition—may apply to the Copyright Office for preregistration. §408(f)(2)), it is now perhaps more important than ever to register your copyright works early. Early registration provides not only evidence as of your date of possession of the work but also can expedite the filing of an enforcement lawsuit against alleged infringers.
It has become more and more routine in the past few years for a client to call Woodard, Emhardt, Henry, Reeves & Wagner, LLP regarding an infringing item being sold on Amazon. Often the seller is new and/or located overseas. Sending a letter to Amazon would typically trigger a standard response in which the seller’s identifying information is provided and you were asked to work it out with them. Filing a lawsuit is extremely expensive, particularly when the seller doesn’t reside in the United States. Moreover, filing a new lawsuit with each new Amazon listing could be cost prohibitive. As such, there really wasn’t any quick and efficient way for deal with this type of infringement.
In the past, the most effective solution was to seek and obtain an exclusion order from the International Trade Commission, which Amazon and other online marketplaces would recognize and promptly remove infringing listings. However, Amazon has recently launched a pilot program which is intended to resolve this situation, while giving both patent owners and sellers a fair opportunity to be heard.
The program is currently by invitation only, but we have successfully utilized it to remove dozens of infringing listings on behalf of a number of our clients. The program allows the owner of a utility patent to submit a takedown notification against a product listed on Amazon.com. The takedown notification is limited to a single claim of a utility patent. Upon receiving the complaint, Amazon notifies the seller, who has twenty-one days to contest the infringement allegation. In order to contest, the seller must agree to a quasi-arbitration which focuses solely on the question of infringement. In addition, the seller must submit $4,000 to a patent practitioner selected by Amazon as the neutral evaluator. If the seller does not contest the claim of infringement, the listing is promptly removed.
Assuming the seller does contest, the patent owner must also submit $4,000 with the neutral evaluator. The neutral evaluator then receives compact briefing over a roughly two-month period and issues a decision soon thereafter. Amazon will either maintain or remove the listing based on the neutral evaluator’s decision. Moreover, in the event the neutral evaluator finds infringement, that decision will control all future complaints of physically identical products. The “winner” of the evaluation receives their $4,000 back, with the losers’ $4,000 being retained by the neutral evaluator as his/her fee.
In essence, Amazon has created a path for utility patent holders to have infringing listings removed relatively quickly without Amazon itself being forced to make the often difficult judgment calls that patent infringement sometimes requires. The program is well suited for many of the infringing issues we deal with. However, its simplicity will likely cause some problems when patent owners, whose infringement claims involve more complex questions, seek to enter the program.
If you have infringing items listed on Amazon and would like to learn how Woodard Emhardt can assist you in promptly and efficiently removing those items, please feel free to contact Bill McKenna.
The USPTO has issued a final rule, “Setting and Adjusting Patent Fees during Fiscal Year 2017” to set or adjust certain patent fees. Notably, the rule increases a large number of fees including filing fees, search fees, examination fees, and issue fees as well as fees for RCEs, PGRs, IPRs, Appeals, and Petitions. These fee increases will take effect on January 16, 2018.
For the full list of the patent fees that are changing and more information on fee setting and adjusting at the USPTO, please visit https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/performance-and-planning/fee-setting-and-adjusting.
The August 2017 patent prosecution lunch featured a discussion of the recent United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) report concerning patentable subject matter. In addition, the availability of Computer Based Training (CBT) for e-Petitions was highlighted. A summary of a recent case concerning the broadest reasonable interpretation standard for means-plus-function limitations (IPCom v. HTC) was presented. Recent updates for Brazil’s proposed extraordinary solution for its patent application backlog problem and Canada’s promise doctrine were provided. Download the presentation here.
The AIPLA has provided a new Legislative Proposal and Report on Patent Eligible Subject Matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. This report urges congressional action to overhaul, and indeed expressly overrule the current judicially created framework under section 101 in light of recent jurisprudence from the Supreme Court and other lower Courts applying the new standard.
Magistrate Judge in Eastern District of Texas Adds to the Developing Jurisprudence of Estoppel in the Context of IPRs and 35 U.S.C. § 315.
A magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Texas has recommended to the Court on May 11, 2017 that Microsoft be estopped from raising certain defenses at trial stemming from a total of six (6) IPRs filed by Microsoft against the patent owner Biscotti Inc.
Section 315(e) estops Microsoft from asserting at trial: (1) grounds for which the PTAB instituted IPR and determined those grounds to be insufficient to establish unpatentability after a trial on the merits; (2) grounds included in a petition but determined by the PTAB to not establish a reasonable likelihood of unpatentability (in other words, administrative review on the merits of a ground); and (3) grounds not included in a petition that a “skilled searcher conducting a diligent search reasonably could have been expected to discover.” See, e.g., 157 Cong. Rec. S1375 (daily ed. Mar. 8, 2011) (statement of Senator Jon Kyl); see also Clearlamp, LLC v. LKQ Corp., No. 12 C 2533, 2016 WL 4734389, at *9 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 18, 2016) (adopting the skilled searcher standard). As for the third category, the Court agrees with the Delaware court when it remarked, “extending [Shaw’s] logic to prior art references that were never presented to the PTAB at all (despite their public nature) confounds the very purpose of this parallel administrative proceeding . . . .” Intellectual Ventures I, Case No. 13-CV-00453-SLR, Dkt. No. 559 at 26-27. Finally, Microsoft is not estopped from asserting grounds included in a petition but which the PTAB found redundant or declined to institute review for another procedural reason. See Shaw, 817 F.3d at 1300; HP, 817 F.3d at 1347.
Read the full Report and Recommendation here.

References: §411
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