RONALD D. COLEMAN, PARTNER, MANDELBAUM SALSBURG
The Connecticut Intellectual Property Law Association (CIPLA) is pleased to announce its second meeting in the 2019-2020 schedule. We are welcoming Ronald D. Coleman, a partner at Mandelbaum Salsburg in New York, who will speak about the overturning of the Lanham Act’s provisions prohibiting the registration of disparaging, immoral, and scandalous trademarks with the USPTO. Mr. Coleman represented Simon Tam in his attempt to register the trademark “THE SLANTS” with the USPTO in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case Matal v. Tam, which overturned the provisions of the Lanham Act prohibiting “disparaging” trademarks on First Amendment grounds. The Tam case was highly influential in the subsequent Supreme Court case Iancu v. Brunetti, which also overturned the provisions of the Lanham Act prohibiting the registration of “immoral” and “scandalous” trademarks on the same grounds. Mr. Coleman will speak about both of these cases, including his experience in the Tam case, and provide his insights regarding the future of registration of these types of controversial trademarks with the USPTO. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 6:00pm at the Graduate Club in New Haven. Please RSVP by November 15, 2019 on the CIPLA website or by emailing CIPLA Program Chair Jeff Scepanski at jscepanski@ogrp.com.