Fenwick trademark litigation partner Eric Ball spoke to Law360 about some of the biggest open trademark questions that the courts and lawmakers have yet to definitively answer.
Ball talked about whether national borders still matter in trademark law, given major cross-border trademark rulings by the Fourth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit over the past two years.
The decisions in bothBayer vs. Belmora and Trader Joe's v. Michael Hallatt showed an unwillingness to be constricted by traditional territorial restraints on the Lanham Act.
“Since the Supreme Court did not grant cert in the Belmora case, we are left to wonder whether outside of the Fourth Circuit, can foreign plaintiffs with admittedly no use of their mark in the U.S. still assert an unfair competition claim?” Ball told Law360.
The full article is available through the Law360 website (subscription required).