Perkins Law - Brand Protection

📰 NEW BLOG POST 📰

Estee Lauder Sues Walmart Over Alleged Counterfeit Products. 🛡️⚖️

According to Insurance Journal, Estee Lauder has filed a federal intellectual property lawsuit in California against Walmart, alleging that the retail giant's online marketplace facilitated the sale of counterfeit fragrance products falsely marketed as genuine Clinique, Tom Ford, and Le Labo. 💼

🛡️ Why every brand-conscious business owner should pay attention: counterfeit protection begins with federal trademark registration and continues with active monitoring of the channels where your products are sold. The registration is the leverage. The monitoring is the trigger. Both are what make a case like this one possible in the first place.

Read the full breakdown on the blog. 🔗
https://www.brandprotection.law/estee-lauder-sues-walmart-over-alleged-counterfeit-products/

Perkins Law - Brand Protection
Boca Raton, FL | 561-467-4001
Get Your Brand Armor On!®

💡 DID YOU KNOW? 💡

The U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to review a trademark fight between a small coffee company and PepsiCo. ☕⚖️

RISE Brewing, a company that sells canned nitro cold brew coffee under the name RISE, sued PepsiCo after Pepsi launched an energy drink called MTN DEW RISE ENERGY in 2021. RISE Brewing says the beverage giant's marketing muscle drowned out its own brand, with some customers who ordered its coffee receiving Pepsi's drink instead. Lawyers call this "reverse confusion." Instead of a copycat riding a famous brand's coattails, a big company's spending power can bury the smaller brand that got there first.

A federal judge in Manhattan initially blocked Pepsi from using the name. The appeals court disagreed, calling RISE a weak mark for coffee, and later rulings ended the case in Pepsi's favor. On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court stepped in to answer a question that matters in every trademark case: who decides how strong a trademark is, the judge or the jury? Most federal appeals courts treat that as a factual question for the jury. The New York appeals court treated it as a question for the judge. The case is RiseandShine Corp. v. PepsiCo, Inc., with arguments expected in the term starting October 2026. 🛡️

Why this matters for every business owner:

📌 Your brand name has a "strength" rating in the eyes of the law. Distinctive, made up names get stronger protection than names that describe what you sell.

📌 Size is not a legal defense. A small brand with real rights can take a giant to court, and this one made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

📌 Who decides your case can shape your case. How a trademark dispute is heard can matter as much as the facts.

We will be watching this one closely.

Perkins Law - Brand Protection
Boca Raton, FL | 561-467-4001
Get Your Brand Armor On!®

📰 New on the Blog 📰

Supreme Court Declines to Hear AI Copyright Case. 🤖⚖️

On March 2, 2026, Reuters reported that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who had been denied a federal copyright registration for a piece of visual art titled "A Recent Entrance to Paradise" that he said was generated autonomously by an AI system named DABUS. 🎨

Why every brand-conscious business owner should pay attention: if AI is in your content workflow, the question of "who owns this?" needs a real answer before the asset goes out the door. Document the human creative decisions, keep the prompts and edits, and get guidance on what is protectable and what is not.

Read the full breakdown on the blog 🔗 https://www.brandprotection.law/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-ai-copyright-case/

Perkins Law - Brand Protection
Boca Raton, FL | 561-467-4001
Get Your Brand Armor On!®