Taylor Swift’s team recently filed new trademark applications for two sound marks for Taylor’s voice, and one design mark for a glittering image from the Eras Tour:
Trademark U.S. Serial No. 99/784,977
On March 13, 2026, and effective immediately, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a notice of “Supplemental Guidance for Examination of Design Patent Applications Related to Computer-Generated Interfaces and Icons” in the Federal Register (“Supplemental Guidance”), with application to all design patent applications filed before, on, or after March 13, 2026. In
On March 3, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (“Court”) issued a seismic ruling effectively vacating several components of Health Resources and Services Administration’s (“HRSA”) 340B registration requirements for qualifying off-site hospital facilities (“Order”). The Order represents a victory for 340B participating hospitals that will permit these entities to begin utilizing
Each year on March 5, the U.S. design community celebrates National Industrial Design Day, a moment to recognize the professionals behind the products we use every day. First entered into the U.S. Congressional Record in 2015, the day acknowledges that industrial designers improve our lives in countless ways by shaping products that are not only
A little over a month after a federal circuit court blocked the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) scheduled implementation of its 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program largely due to procedural deficiencies, HRSA appears to be performing additional diligence in hopes of avoiding similar setbacks in the future. In an announcement on February 13, 2026,
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announced on February 10, 2026 that it has added a new category to its Trademark Design Search Code Manual for sound and motion marks. The Manual now includes new Category 30, which adds seven codes to enable trademark applicants and practitioners to more readily identify relevant
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Range of Motion Products v. Armaid is another reminder that, if care is not taken, design patent scope can be narrowed significantly in the U.S. through functionality analysis—often at the claim construction stage—and even result in summary judgment of non-infringement.
For many product-focused companies, design often is the product. Differentiation lives in surface ornamentation, overall look-and-feel, and visual details that drive purchasing decisions often long before utility is evaluated. Against that backdrop, many brands are reexamining copyright law as a faster, more flexible tool for protecting product aesthetics.
Mere days before the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program’s (“Pilot”) scheduled January 1, 2026 effective date, a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts the scheduled implementation of the Pilot approved rebate models. The decision, citing significant deficiencies in HRSA’s administrative processes when developing and implementing
In a move that will fundamentally change how the 340B Drug Pricing Program (“340B Program”) operates for a subset of medications, HRSA’s Office of Pharmacy Affairs (“OPA”) opted late last week to approve eight manufacturer plans for participation in the 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program (“Pilot”). These approved plans, which will take effect on January
