IP Update, Vol. 14, No. 12, December 2011

The Board dismissed this petition for cancellation of Roman Atwood's registration for the mark SMILE MORE for various goods (stickers, backpacks, shirts) and for retail store service featuring clothing, denying petitioner's claim that the term fails to function as a mark.

The Federal Circuit reaffirmed that the 1907 Supreme Court decision in Kessler v. Eldred is binding precedent that controls a preclusion analysis unless and until the Supreme Court overrules it.

Intellectual property is central to almost everything we do, as businesses or individuals. As a result, intellectual property rights are important assets to most modern businesses.

Universal Music Group's lawsuit against DistroKid raises a critical question about AI disclosure in consumer markets: when does the use of artificial intelligence become material information that must be disclosed to consumers? The case centers on allegations that DistroKid distributed mass-generated AI music while creating the impression it was created by legitimate human artists, potentially violating existing consumer protection laws even without specific AI disclosure requirements.

On Oct. 7, 2026, at 18:00 UTC, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will publish every new generic top-level domain (gTLD) application proceeding in the 2026 new gTLD Round, including who applied...

Top global brands, famous content creators, and media moguls know the best protection they can secure for their products is Pryor Cashman representation.

A business decides to file a trademark. Someone on the team searches for a familiar online legal-services brand, clicks the first result, and lands on a site with a similar-sounding name, a polished design, five-star reviews, and a low flat fee. The application gets filed. Months later the business learns the “service” was not who they thought it was, the filing was signed by someone with no authority to sign it, and the USPTO has suspended the application along with hundreds or thousands of others from the same shop.

The U.S. Copyright Office recently released a report on the human authorship requirement for materials to qualify for copyright protection.

The USPTO has released new templates and guidance for AIA trial proceedings, announced key appointments including a Chief AI Officer, and published updated procedures for patent applications and subject matter eligibility declarations. Director Squires delivered multiple addresses emphasizing the constitutional importance of intellectual property rights while the agency expanded its community engagement efforts and international collaboration through WIPO's Global IP Assignment Platform pilot program.

The U.S. government has filed a Statement of Interest of the United States of America under 28 U.S.C. § 517 in the Southern District of New York multidistrict litigation over OpenAI’s use of copyrighted works to train large language models. The filing appears to be the federal government’s first direct intervention in the wave of artificial intelligence (AI) training copyright cases, and it advises the court to treat model training (separate from use of AI to generate outputs) on copyrighted text standing alone as a highly transformative fair use under current law.