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Trademark & Copyright Litigation
At Ropes & Gray, we understand the protection of a company's brand, image and creative work is critical to business success. Our Intellectual Property Group attorneys represent a wide range of industries in trademark, trade dress, copyright, unfair competition, false advertising and domain name disputes. Some of our trademark and copyright cases are among the most prominent in the field, and we are frequently mentioned by major national and international publications as one of the top trademark litigation teams in the United States.
Our lawyers represent companies at both the trial and appellate levels, in courts across the nation. We also litigate matters before the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), the International Trade Commission (ITC) and tribunals around the world, where we work collaboratively with experienced local counsel.
Because an important part of trademark enforcement is effective policing, we carefully monitor our clients' marks. We regularly issue cease and desist letters to avoid dilution of valuable trademark rights. In addition, we record registered marks with the Customs Service to prevent the importation of goods bearing infringing trademarks.
Our client list reads like an almanac of leading commercial and consumer brands. We represented Motorola in groundbreaking litigation against the National Basketball Association over the transmission of basketball scores, and HBO in important trademark litigation against Showtime. Our representation of The Coca-Cola Company resulted in decisions that reinforced Coke® and Coca-Cola® as two of the most widely recognized trademarks in the world. We have also represented companies such as: Compaq Computer (now Hewlett-Packard), Dow Jones, Dreyer's Ice Cream, Emerson Electric, Forest Laboratories, Gillette, Good Humor, Hershey, Lever Brothers, Marvel Entertainment Group, Movado, Nestlé, Pharmacia, Revlon, Snapple Beverage and TV Guide.
Representative Matters
- We represented a large telecommunications equipment manufacturer in a copyright infringement case based on switch controlling software.
- On behalf of an agency of the French government and a consortium of Cognac producers, we successfully blocked the registration of the trademark "Canadian Mist and Cognac" by Brown-Forman Corp. through extensive litigation before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Among other things, this precedent-setting case established that "Cognac" is a common-law certification mark entitled to full protection by the U.S. PTO against registration of confusingly similar marks. (Institut Nationale des Appellations d'Origine, et al., v. Brown-Forman Corp.)
- In 2004, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board dismissed each count of Bacardi & Company’s petition to cancel our client Cubaexport’s U.S. registration of the famous Havana Club trademark for rum.
- In a widely followed case, we represented Motorola. The company marketed a Sportstrax pager that provided information about NBA games while the games were in progress. The NBA brought suit for copyright infringement, misappropriation and violation of Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act among other claims. The District Court dismissed each of the NBA’s claims other than the misappropriation claim. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision regarding misappropriation and affirmed dismissal of the NBA’s Lanham Act claim. (National Basketball Assn. v. Motorola, Inc.)
- In Société Des Produits Nestle v. Casa Helvetia, Nestlé sued Helvetia to prevent importation of gray market Perugina chocolate. Nestlé lost, and hired Fish & Neave to handle the appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit reversed, establishing important new law in the process.
- PostX, a provider of secure e-mail software, sued Fish & Neave’s client docSpace, a supplier of secure Internet document management services, for trademark infringement. After the court denied PostX’s preliminary injunction motion, the case was dismissed. (PostX Corporation v. The docSpace Company, Inc.)
©2008 Ropes & Gray LLP. All rights reserved.
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