Blackletter

Listen to today's Minute as we look at the puzzling case of the Rubik's Cube. The Rubik's Cube Company brought a lawsuit against the parent of Duncan Toys Company, Flambeau. They asked a court to find that Flambeau infringed their trademark for the Rubik's Cube. Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

Listen to today's episode as we're going to talk about Epic's Antitrust battle against Apple over Fortnite and developer fees . Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

Tom Dunlap chats with Ben Barlow and David Ludwig, both of Dunlap, Bennett & Ludwig, to discuss the dos and don’ts of non-compete agreements. Topics include defining non-competition agreements, COVID & enforcing these clauses and anti-trust criminal statute enforcement.

Listen to today's episode as we're going to talk about how the coronavirus pandemic could impact commercial real estate and cause issues for subleases. Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

Listen to today's episode as we're going to talk about a typographical error and font changes that led prosecutors to conclude that a New York man had faked his death to avoid sentencing in two cases. Grab your coffee and tune in to find out more...

On July 3rd, the Washington Redskins announced that it would review its team name after nearly two decades of vigorously fighting legal challenges by Native Americans to keep it. Two registration cancellation actions filed in the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [1]  culminated in  Pro-Football, Inc. v. Blackhorse , a decision by a federal district court in...

Tom Dunlap sits down with Gerald LeMelle of Dunlap, Bennett & Ludwig about immigration in the time of COVID and what the new executive order means for employees and students alike. We also hear from Natalie Cressey, a Canadian student attending Boston University and how this executive order will impact her.

In the first half of 2020, several significant decisions further shaped the course of trademark law, with rulings from the Supreme Court and circuit courts impacting USPTO proceedings, as described below: Romag Fasteners v. Fossil (U.S. Supreme Court): In April, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified what a plaintiff in a trademark infringement suit is required to prove to be granted a defendant’s ill-g...

Today we're going to talk about the TCPA and a new ruling from the FCC. The Federal Communications Commission, the FCC has just approved two new safe harbors from liability for blocking unwanted robocalls. This is good news for consumers. As phone companies step up and try to block unwanted robocalls and illegal robocalls, this provides a safe harbor for those phone companies so that they don't ge...

Tom Dunlap sits down with Tracy Pearson and Rolando Diaz of Dunlap, Bennett & Ludwig to discuss the unique aspects of the Delaware court system. Topics include the advantages of incorporating in Delaware, local counsel in Delaware, the Delaware bar process and advice for those looking to incoporate and practice in the state.

Today, a little bit of the lighter side of law. We're going to stay away from COVID. A federal judge dismissed a putative class action over Nestle Toll Houses Premier White Morsels. What happened here? Well, plaintiff's, a class action group, brought a lawsuit saying that Nestle's Toll House Premier White Morsels didn't actually contain chocolate. And that using the words white and premier, even t...

Today, we're going to talk about COVID and coronavirus in the trademark world. Whenever there's a big news story or something that just entices the United States population, and in this case, the globe, in this case, it's coronavirus and COVID, and COVID-19, these are new terms that we've never heard before. And there's a huge misconception among the public that if you register something at the US...

Today, we're going to talk about legal issues in the COVID-19 vaccine development arena. A big challenge from a legal perspective is how can these companies get the vaccine to us? Typically when you're developing a new vaccine or anything for use inside of a human being, the FDA under the FD and C Act, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics act, and the Public Health Service Act regulates the develo...

Tom Dunlap speaks with Phil Schwartz, attorney at Dunlap, Bennett and Ludwig, about what steps to take, shifts to make and liabilities to expect when employer strives for re-open.  

Today we're going to talk very briefly about online conferences and the potential loss of intellectual property rights and the risks that you face. In this new day and age of COVID-19 and Zoom conferences, people have been bombing Zoom conferences logging in when they don't have the right to, even password protected conferences get photobombed, like Zoombombed, I guess.  First, you might not alway...

A suspension was sought for a lawyer who lobbed insults at another lawyer during a deposition. It's funny because the lawyer in the deposition itself defended the insults that he lobbed in the civility of his legal practice by citing the President.  The conflict started, and this is according to an article in the ABA Journal from May 6, 2020, when an attorney named Cone instructed his client not t...

Tom Dunlap speaks remotely with Jenn Loges, of One Degree Capital, and Cherylyn Harley LeBon, of Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, about the newly released SBA guidelines on loan forgiveness.

Today we're going to talk about the power grid. A new executive order from President Donald Trump is going to prohibit United States companies who work in the power grid from buying and putting in electrical equipment that has been made outside of the U.S. Worried about the threat of foreign countries willfully manipulating our power grid with "potentially catastrophic effects", this would present...

Tom Dunlap Chats remotely with Bruce Coombes, CEO of QuickFee about his business, using payment solutions for professional services during the pandemic and advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Today we're going to talk about a Supreme Court argument. The first one ever heard by telephone in the entire history of the United States Supreme Court. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court heard arguments on May 4th, 2020, in the case of the United States Patent and Trademark Office versus Booking.com. Booking.com says that the term Booking.com should not be considered generic. The Un...

Today we're going to talk about employers and how they think about reopening as states start to reopen. Virginia's announced something called the Forward Virginia plan, which they'll start to loosen and reopen businesses in stages. California has something similar called the California's Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience. What these plans generally do is reopen businesses stage by stage. As instances...

What is a notorious market? It's a term that's used to describe websites and physical marketplaces, both where there's large scale intellectual property infringement, particularly in the copyright and trademark space. Every year the United States trade representative, at least for a few years now, issues it's Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy. These are markets that the off...

On today's episode Tom Dunlap has a virtual chat with John Whitbeck of WhitbeckBennett about an array of family issues and solutions during this trying time.

Cherylyn Harley LeBon  is a partner and  Ithi Joshi  is an associate for Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, practicing out of the  Tysons Corner  office. NOTE: Please see Part I of DBL coverage of the PPP  here [Apr. 24, 2020 Tysons Corner]  It took less than 2 weeks to exhaust the PPP allocation of $349 billion. The White House and Senate finalized a second relief package of $484 billion earlier this week...

The first three states to delay the July bar exam, California, Massachusetts and New York, and students in all of those states are pushing for something called an emergency diploma privilege. No decision's been made yet, but this emergency diploma privilege would essentially allow graduates of American Bar Association accredited law schools to start practicing law without taking the bar exam due t...