January 6, 2023

Joel Samuels Featured in Bloomberg Law’s Look at 2023’s Most-Anticipated IP Law Developments

Harness IP partner Joel Samuels is featured in a Bloomberg Law article outlining 2023’s most anticipated intellectual property (IP) court cases, legal trends, and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rule changes.

Samuels, a partner at the firm’s St. Louis office, gives insight on the recent trademark office rule change regarding shortened deadlines for responding to office actions, from six months to three. He questions whether the change would actually speed up the process of registering marks. Samuels says he is not sure how much would change, as the time for the USPTO to respond to an application remains around 8.5 months and registration takes around 14 months.

He shares with Bloomberg Law some concern that the requirement of foreign applicants to use domestic counsel has not had as great an impact as the office wanted, “as applicants can usually find an attorney to file.” He mentions that a recent trend of examiners becoming picky about particular goods listed in an application may be in part to serve as a filter of phony applications, forcing a response that a fraudulent applicant usually would not bother to file.

The article also looks at several IP matters before the United States Supreme Court, including an entertaining yet informative analysis of an appeal on a case involving a dog chew toy by the Jack Daniels Company regarding what it views as copyright infringement on trade dressing and a lower court’s $95 million ruling against the company based on First Amendment protections.

Bloomberg Law’s look-ahead was published December 30 and can be found here.

 


Harness IP is celebrating more than 100 years as an intellectual property law firm. Founded in 1921, the firm currently holds a No. 2 ranking from IAM Media for providing counsel to 44 companies with the largest portfolios of issued U.S. patents. The firm also ranks No. 6 for filing the most patent applications on behalf of those companies. Harness IP’s attorneys and IP professionals focus exclusively on patents, trademarks, global IP management, litigation and other IP rights. The firm has offices in metropolitan Dallas, Detroit, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Visit www.harnessip.com for more information.