Thanks to our March guest bloggers, Louis Andrew ‘66 and 3L Nicholas Harken. Our April bloggers will be Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Keith Richards. Okay, that was indeed a lame April’s Fools joke. But we can no doubt expect an interesting month from Eric Pearson ’07 and 1L Joseph Schuster. Richards will not actually be blogging here until next month, when he is in town to pick up his honorary degree at the Law School’s graduation ceremony.
Some April Fool’s Day reading:
Eric Goldman is not a fan.
Larry Solum is, and managed to fool me for the third year in a row! Lots of inside baseball, but these are pretty well done.
Google makes fun of its own trademark (see esp. the handy guide for how to use the name of their company at the end).
Congratulations to 3L Laura Steele, the winner of this year’s Frank DeGuire Award for the best student comment in the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review. Laura’s terrific comment, entitled “Actual or Hypothetical: Determining the Proper Test for Trademark Licensee Rights in Bankruptcy,” is available on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
As trademark rights become an increasingly valuable asset in Chapter 11 reorganizations, it is critical for Congress and the courts to clarify how trademarks will be treated in bankruptcy, particularly where the debtor is a trademark licensee. Without clarity, Chapter 11 reorganization may not be a viable option.
This Comment urges that trademark licensees should not be stripped of a license simply because the licensee enters bankruptcy. Rather, where a licensee intends only to continue using an existing license under the terms of the existing agreement with the licensor, the licensee’s use of that license should be uninterrupted during reorganization. This recommendation, contrary to the position of trademark licensors, will not invade the province of trademark owners to control their marks.
To support this recommendation, this Comment examines the statutory frameworks of both trademark and bankruptcy law, legislative history of the Bankruptcy Code, and cases that illuminate the current circuit split over the rights of a trademark licensee in bankruptcy. Building on these elements, this Comment outlines an analytical approach that strikes a balance between the need for business reorganization and the duty of a trademark licensor to exercise control over its mark.