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... week, the U.S. Supreme Court published its decision on Hana Financial Inc. v. Hana Bank, case number 13-1211. No surprises. Unanimously, the nine justices of the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and held that a jury should decide whether tacking is available in a jury case. Under the tacking doctrine, a trademark owner is permitted to make certain modifications to its mark over time without losing priority, i.e., the date of first use of the older mark, when there is a dispute with another ...

... parties’ oral arguments on December 2, 2014. We should expect a decision by about March 2015. Together with the B&B Hardware case, the Hana Bank is one of the top trademark cases to watch in 2015. The Supreme Court’s focus is on how the doctrine of tacking should be applied. Tacking allows a company to slightly modify a trademark while maintaining the original first-use date — the idea being to allow for a mark to be tweaked without losing priority. The Supreme Court is deciding whether trademark ...