Two years ago, the Supreme Court issued an important trademark decision that concerned the intersection of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to The Constitution and the “disparagement clause” within the Lanham Act.

It is well known that the U.S. federal government’s Executive Branch administers the U.S. patent system and that it provides relief to aggrieved patent owners through its courts.

The Supreme Court settled a longstanding issue in trademark/bankruptcy law earlier this year.

Now that my series on intellectual-property (IP) damages is complete, I would like to discuss the latest Supreme Court IP decisions. The Supreme Court issued two decisions that specifically addressed copyright law on March 4, 2019. This blog will discuss the decision relating to copyright registration requirements.

The determination of damages for trademark infringement or unfair competition is not as uniform as in patent cases or copyright cases because the enforcement of trademarks can be governed by federal substantive law, state law or both.

This is a continuation of part 3, which can be found here.

This is a continuation of part 2, which can be found here.

Unjust enrichment can be determined through at least two different methods: the defendant’s profits or the defendant’s cost reduction.

The next set of blog posts will discuss trade-secret damages. Trade-secret law, unlike patent law, is governed by both state and federal law in the U.S. As a result, the law is not necessarily uniform throughout the U.S. Nevertheless, trade-secret damages, generally, can take one of three forms: actual loss caused by misappropriation, unjust enrichment and reasonable royalties.

Earlier this year, I did a blog post on the status of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA). In the blog, I noted that the UTSA has been enacted in 48 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with New York and Massachusetts being the lone holdouts.