6 Key Takeaways | Annual Update on Recent Trademark Case Law

Kilpatrick partner Ted Davis recently presented his “Annual Update on Recent Trademark Case Law” at the firm's 2025 Advanced Trademark Law Seminar in San Francisco.

Below, Mr. Davis highlights key takeaways from his presentation which included:

1. the Supreme Court's adoption in Vidal v. Elster, 602 U.S. 286 (2024), of a history-and-tradition model for evaluating the constitutionality of some—but perhaps not all—content-discriminatory prohibitions on registrations;

2. the applications on remand and otherwise of the Court's decisions in Jack Daniel's Props., Inc. v. VIP Prods. LLC, 599 U.S. 140 (2023) and Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int'l, Inc., 600 U.S. 412 (2023);

3. yet another accounting-of-profits dispute before the Court, namely, Dewberry Eng'rs Inc. v. Dewberry Grp., 77 F.4th 265 (4th Cir. 2023), cert. granted, 144 S. Ct. 2681 (2024);

4. the strange goings-on in Pennsylvania State Univ. v. Vintage Brand, LLC, 715 F. Supp. 3d 602 (M.D. Pa. 2024);

5. the USPTO's new fee schedule; and

6. the phaseout of United States Patents Quarterly by the USPTO's trademark operations.

For more information, please contact:
Ted Davis: tdavis@ktslaw.com