May 13 2021
In July 2019, Dolce Vita
Footwear Inc (Dolce Vita) filed two intent-to-use based trademark applications
with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the mark ‘CLEAR’ covering footwear,
various items of apparel, bags and related accessories in international Classes
18 and 25.
The USPTO’s examining attorney
initially refused registration of both applications on the ground that the
proposed mark was merely descriptive of the identified goods, relying in part
on the definition of ‘clear’ as “[e]asily seen through; transparent,” and
arguing that the word ‘clear’ is commonly used to describe a feature of such goods
that would be immediately understood by consumers from Dolce Vita’s proposed
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February 09 2021
Individuals and businesses all over the world rely on the accuracy and integrity of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) federal trademark register to inform them on key decisions regarding branding and marketing. The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (TMA), part of the COVID-19 relief legislative package signed into law on December 27 2020, acknowledges this by, among other things, establishing new procedures and creating powerful tools to fortify the reliability of the register, while addressing the long-standing issues caused by trademark filings based on false assertions of use in the US.
Challenging unused trademarks
The TMA, which will go into effect on December 27 2021, provides two new mechanisms to challenge existing trademark registrations on the ground of non-use and are intended to reduce the effort required for interested parties to remove abandoned marks from the register.