Trademark Law Shows Promise in Rooting out Unused Marks

Intellectual Property attorney Daniel Neustadt was quoted in a Law360 article analyzing the Trademark Modernizations Act's (TMA) new procedures for challenging trademark registrations and evaluating their effectiveness. The TMA created two new procedures, ex parte expungement and ex parte reexamination, whose purpose is to remove trademark registrations that aren't being used anymore, have never been used or were fraudulently obtained. Mr. Neustadt commented on a case Holland & Knight handled concerning a registration for "SPI." He explained that the firm showed the specimens — a business card and wedding website — were insufficient, adding that the team did so through placing the specimens "in their proper context" to show that the mark was not for the use of others.

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