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The Intellectual Property StrategistFeaturesCopyrightsIntellectual PropertyLegislationTrademarks

New COVID Relief Bill Brings Changes to Trademark and Copyright Practice

By Eugene Y. Mar, Nate A. Garhart and Ashleigh Nickerson
March 01, 2021

The new, more than 5,000-page spending bill (formally known as The Consolidated Appropriations Act), which includes the latest COVID-19 relief, had a few surprises under its cover. Two of those surprises focus directly on intellectual property and amount to sea changes in the trademark and copyright infringement realms.

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Trademark

The spending bill incorporates the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (the TMA), which provides valuable new weapons against trademark infringement.

The U.S. trademark application system provides an opportunity for fraudulent "intent-to-use" applications that raise barriers to registration by the true rights owner and can be used as leverage. Because the trademark owner's sole remedy against such applications has traditionally been to file to oppose registration, the costs of the dispute process often made it more practical to simply pay bad-faith demands by unscrupulous filers of blocking applications.

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