As digital technology and the online environment transform the distribution and use of intellectual property, our Copyright & Trademark group is on the front lines in protecting and enforcing our clients’ most important creative assets. Our trial-tested team represents a wide range of clients, from entrepreneurs to major corporations, from playwrights to media giants, and from individual songwriters to the country’s largest performing rights organizations.
Intellectual Property Litigation: Registration Requirements for Lanham Act Heads to High Court
September 13, 2023
Litigation partners Catherine Nyarady and Crystal Parker’s latest intellectual property litigation column, “Registration Requirements for Lanham Act Heads to High Court,” appeared in the September 13 issue of the New York Law Journal. The authors discuss an upcoming Supreme Court case, Vidal v. Elster International, in which the justices will consider whether the Lanham Act’s prohibition on the registration of any trademark containing the name, portrait or signature of a living person without their written consent conflicts with the free speech clause of the First Amendment—in this case by barring registration of a trademark that contains criticism of a government official or public figure. The decision is likely to have important implications not only for trademark registrations, but also potentially in determining collisions between trademark rights, rights of publicity and freedom of speech considerations. Litigation counsel Anna Gressel assisted in the preparation of this column.
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