Barton Beebe

1 Introduction Early on in the case Pennsylvania State University v. Vintage Brand LLC,1 Chief Judge Matthew W.

INTRODUCTION In 2023, nearly 740,000 trademark applications were filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 2023). For each of these trademark applications, an examining attorney at the USPTO must decide whether the criteria for trademark protection are met. Companies developing a new brand that would like to register their trademarks must predict the outcome of this examination when devising their brand strategy.

Barton Beebe* and Jeanne C. Fromer** Download a PDF version of this article, including the appendices, here. Introduction The Lanham Act sets forth which trademarks may be registered at the Patent and Trademark Office.[1] It contains a number of limitations on registrability.