Bright Law LLC

BRANDS!!! ✨ We want you to know how you can own your brands without applying for a trademark. Visit our website to get your free copy of our guide “DO YOU OWN YOUR BRAND”

In this guide, we answer the most common questions we get from brand owners who have not filed for trademark registration ®️. You’ll learn how you can acquire rights by simply using your brands properly.

There are many benefits of registration, but we want you to have resources to get rights to your brand today.

Let us know what you think ⚡️

The key benefit to IP is the ability to make *EXCLUSIVE* use of your innovation, brand, art, or other creation. You can only do this if you have ownership or exclusive rights. Ownership generally entails an application process - patents, trademarks, and sometimes copyrights. Other times, it requires diligently maintaining the confidentiality of your trade secrets.

Like tangible forms of property, IP can also be bought and sold. However, there are nuances to this. For example, a trademark application can not be transferred until it has been use. This is due to the concept of “goodwill,” which is a topic for another post.

Another way to effectively “own” exclusive rights is by acquiring the exclusive rights through a license. This is often how copyrights are transferred.

Regardless of what mechanism is used, the important takeaway here is that you usually have to be proactive to secure and ensure you have the exclusive rights to IP.

From closing “impossible” licensing deals to defending our clients’ life’s works from IP theft, we had a very busy December! But we’re back on track for regularly scheduled content with a team dedicated to providing interesting insights and valuable information!

Since opening our doors in October, we’ve had an outpouring of support and business! We are so grateful for the support of our clients, friends, and network. Thank you all so much!

We are taking all of our momentum into 2021, and we are doing so from a new office! This is just the first of a few big announcements for us to come!

✌🏼out 2020 because 2021 looks BRIGHT ⚡️

Happy Thanksgiving!

At Bright Law, we have a lot to be grateful for. We hope that you and yours are happy and healthy this holiday.

If you can, this is a great season to help others who are struggling. To share our good fortune with others, we donated to who is providing Thanksgiving dinners to local charities, artists and essential workers.

We’re always looking for other ways we can give back to our community and those in need. Please DM us if there’s a cause near and dear to you, and we will do our best to support how we can!

Did you catch the AMAs last night? J.Lo just doesn’t age! She’s making headlines for another reason this morning. Lopez’s performance is being called out as strikingly similar to Beyoncé’s 2014 Grammy performance.

Entertainment and IP law go hand in hand. So much of a musical artist’s ability to monetize their talents is based in IP law, specifically, copyrights.

This case will probably be decided by public opinion, rather than in the courts. We think that when these women take the stage, we all win!

✨Happy Diwali ✨

From us at Bright Law to all of you! Diwali is the beautiful Indian Festival of Lights that begins tomorrow and usually lasts for 5 days. 💥

While a Festival of Lights certainly already fits with Bright Law’s motif, we really admire how Diwali symbolizes the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil.” (Source: Nat. Geo Society - Celebrate Diwali). In 2020, we could all probably benefit from reflection and celebration of such a message.

Namaste and Happy Diwali to all!

Thank you to all who serve and have served 🙏🏼 🇺🇸

This is a picture of my paternal Grandpa (center), Robert A. Hoggatt, who was a bomber on a B-24 jet during WWII. His plane was shot down, and he was a prisoner of war for over a year.

My oldest uncle was already born when my Grandpa voluntarily enlisted in the US Army. Fortunately, he was able to safely return home and my father (and 5 more siblings) were born.

If you swipe, you’ll also see we’re lucky to have his war diaries. Many entries spoke about missing home and his son. He also drew pictures of his dream home. Other entries detailed attacks and raids, including one where bombs landed just 50ft from where he was being held.

As a new mother, I cannot imagine what both my Grandpa and Grandma went through during his time oversees and in captivity. There was even a letter sent to my Grandma from the US government presuming my Grandpa had been killed in action. My Grandpa went on to become a lawyer, so you might say it’s in the blood ☺️ I was never able to meet him, but I’m grateful for my Grandpa in so many ways.

Thank you to all who serve and have served 🙏🏼 🇺🇸

This is a picture of paternal Grandpa (center), Robert A. Hoggatt, who was a bomber on a B-24 jet during WWII. His plane was shot down, and he was a prisoner of war for over a year.

My oldest uncle, was already born when my Grandpa voluntarily enlisted in the US Army. Fortunately, he was able to safely return home and my father (and 5 more siblings) were born.

If you swipe, you’ll also see we’re lucky to have his war diaries. Many entries spoke about missing home and his son. He also drew pictures of his dream home. Other entries detailed attacks and raids, including one where bombs landed just 50ft from where he was being held.

As a new mother, I cannot imagine what both my Grandpa and Grandma went through during his time oversees and in captivity. There was even a letter sent to my Grandma from the US government presuming my Grandpa had been killed in action. I was never able to meet my Grandpa, but I’m grateful for him in so many ways.

Thank you to all who serve and have served 🙏🏼 🇺🇸

This is a picture of paternal Grandpa (center), Robert A. Hoggatt, who was a bomber on a B-24 jet during WWII. His plane was shot down, and he was a prisoner of war for over a year.

My oldest uncle, was already born when my Grandpa voluntarily enlisted in the US Army. Fortunately, he was able to safely return home and my father (and 5 more siblings) were born.

If you swipe, you’ll also see we’re lucky to have his war diaries. Many entries spoke about missing home and his son. He also drew pictures of his dream home. Other entries detailed attacks and raids, including one where bombs landed just 50ft from where he was being held.

As a new mother, I cannot imagine what both my Grandpa and Grandma went through during his time oversees and in captivity. There was even a letter sent to my Grandma from the US government presuming my Grandpa had been killed in action. I was never able to meet my Grandpa, but I’m grateful for him in so many ways.

Let’s get political…

Trust, goodwill, reliance, exclusivity...these things are required in the realm of trademarks and should be demanded of in the realm of political candidates. While we can’t say much for the latter, we can offer some content for consumption that’s on theme while (hopefully) is also an indulgently educational reprise from the real happenings of this Election Day 2020.

Trademarks are, at their most rudimentary level, source identifiers. A political candidate, at *some* level, is like a design mark for a party. They represent that party, and the party is the *source*. Candidates symbolize a particular party to voters and voters rely on them to uphold certain values, beliefs and policies.

Since we drew this parallel from political parties and candidates to trademarks, we wondered if the parties had sought registrations. Turns out, many parties have both successfully and unsuccessfully applied for various marks.

Trademark 101: A trademark registration grants you the right to exclusively use your mark to signify the source of your goods or services. Consumers rely on these every single day to choose brands that they trust. We call this trust “goodwill.”

Trademark 102: To register a trademark, you must identify the goods and services you offer in interstate commerce in connection with the mark.

Curious what our two main political parties think they offer the American public? We were too, so we checked it out. Here are a few of both major parties’ current trademark registrations:

• Reg. No. 2423459 - LIBERTARIAN PARTY (word mark) for political party services, namely, promoting the interests of a political party
• Reg No. 1892445 - Elephant (stylized mark) for legal services and association services, namely giving legal advice to candidates and state parties and promoting the goods, services and interests of Republican political party
• Reg. No. 4139881 - D (stylized mark) for a plethora of goods, including: Jewelry, lapel pins, bumper stickers; lapel stickers; printed publications, namely, pamphlets providing information regarding political candidates

Some more political party trademark stats:
• DNC - owns 5 live registrations and 1 application
• RNC - owns 14 live registrations and 5 applications
• Libertarians - own 3 live registrations

Finally, this isn’t legal advice, but please go out and vote today if you haven’t already.

PS - We found blog post from 2018 that goes into much more granular details on the makings of a political party trademark. If you’re wondering why only the Libertarian Party has it’s full party name for political services, then this article is for you! You can find it using the link in our bio.

#2020

HALLOWEEN WEEKEND IS HERE!!

🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤

Here at Bright Law we are fans of all things IP and all things Halloween! ☠️👽 👻 So, we rounded up some Halloween IP issues that are haunting some of the most famous celebs and brands right now! There’s also wine 🍷 and chocolate 🍫 involved because we love those too, and they’re on theme. Sue us if you disagree 😉

1. Pl***oy sued Fashion Nova for allegedly ripping off it’s famous bunny brand (sources: TMZ and AP) ❌❌❌
2. Katy Petty countersues paparazzi after they sued her for using their photo of her Hilary Clinton costume back in 2016 because she alleges the costume itself was copyrightable and the photograph they took was a derivative of her work! We are really nerding out over this clever clapback! (source: Billboard)
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3. A winemaker sued Applebee’s for trademark infringement when it offered $1 vampire cocktails when it owns a trademark for “Vampire” for wine, cocktails, restaurant and bar services, and other food and drink goods… We think the real crime here is that we weren’t enjoying dollar drinks at Applebee’s last year! (Source: Bloomberg Law)
🧛‍♀️🧛‍♀️🧛‍♀️
4. Ritter Sport is suing Milka for trademark infringement for its square shape! That’s right you can protect even a shape! (Source: Eater).
🍬 🍬 🍬

IP is a part of our everyday world, and we love spotting these issues. We’re sharing a link in our bio to all the articles we described! We are going to make it a regular habit of updating the link with other IP news that we think is fun and interesting.

Off brand post: If you’re an attorney with cannabis clients or you’re an attorney who wants cannabis clients, join the new Cannabis Attorneys group on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/673783703335940/

Whether you have wisdom to share or questions to ask, it’s a community of attorneys who are practicing in the Wild West of cannabis!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/673783703335940/

💚🌱💚🌱💚🌱