Weekly IP Buzz for the Week Ending June 25, 2021

In this week's post, we see that the Second Circuit overturned the FTC’s decision to pursue litigation against 1-800 Contacts over its trademark agreements with its competitors.

Second Circuit Overturns FTC on Trademark Issues

The Second Circuit made headlines earlier this month by overturning a Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) decision to pursue litigation over trademark agreements made between 1-800 Contacts and thirteen of its competitors.

At issue were agreements that 1-800 Contacts had made with thirteen of its competitors over how to deal with the trademarks of 1-800 Contacts when it came to online advertising and search engine auctions. Specifically, 1-800 Contacts and its competitors contracted to set guidelines that limited the competitors of 1-800 Contacts from bidding on trademarks in such auctions while simultaneously requiring these same competitors to bid on negative keywords. Such bidding would effectively prevent the ads of the competitors from being displayed when consumers searched for 1-800 Contacts on popular search engines.

Read the full article here.

Click to read the previous Weekly IP Buzz on Thriving Attorney.

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In addition to publishing Thriving Attorney, Darin M. Klemchuk is founder of Klemchuk LLP, a litigation, intellectual property, and transactional law firm located in Dallas, Texas. Click to read more about Darin Klemchuk's practice as an intellectual property lawyer. For more on the latest developments in IP law, see the blogs Ideate and IP Questions Answered.