Alt Legal’s Year in Webinars
Alt Legal Team | December 21, 2021
2021 has been a banner year for Alt Legal Webinars! This year we held 13 webinars with 3,500 registrants covering important IP and trademark law topics including the Trademark Modernization Act, TESS searching, NFTs, and more. Also exciting, this year we began offering CLE credit for those attending live programs. Take some time over the holidays to catch up on any webinars you might have missed throughout 2021!
Check out our upcoming webinars for 2022
Stop Marketing up the Wrong Tree: Make 2021 Your Best (Business Development) Year Ever!
Phil Cox, a business development coach specializing in helping IP attorneys, gives you the tools and understanding to be able to make a realistic business development plan for the coming year. He drills down into what’s been working for solos, boutique firms, and larger IP departments and give practical advice about how to follow up with potential clients. Learn more. You can download the presentation slides here and watch the recording here.
Who You Calling Generic?: Responding to Generic and Descriptive Office Actions
In this presentation, David Postolski, ABAIPL’s CLE Officer, enlightens practitioners on the strategic ins and outs of creating a durable and pervasive brand, especially one that uses words that may be deemed generic or descriptive by trademark offices around the world. Not everyone can come up with a fanciful trademark or have the marketing dollars for an arbitrary trademark, so many brand owners are resigned to creating brands and logos that may be deemed unregistrable by the Trademark Office. David lays out the risks and rewards for choosing marks that may be deemed less distinct and discusses strategies to ensure protection is not limited. Learn more. You can download the presentation slides here and watch the recording here.
Modernize Your Approach to Trademarks: Understanding the Trademark Modernization Act
The Trademark Modernization Act was signed into law in December, and it makes significant changes to the United States Trademark Act of 1946, a.k.a. the Lanham Act. Wonder how these changes will affect the prosecution and litigation practices of trademark firms, startups, and businesses? Rukayatu Tijani—a former federal judicial law clerk turned Intellectual Property Attorney and the found of Firm for the Culture—breaks down the new legislation to tell you what it means for you and your clients. Learn more. You can download the presentation slides here and watch the recording here.
Searching Rescue: Advanced TESS Searches
Searching Trademark Office records is key to assessing whether a trademark is a good candidate for registration. In this webinar, former USPTO trademark examiner Ed Timberlake guides you through searching Trademark Office records from the basic index to X-Search summaries. Ed guides you through crafting trademark search strategies wide enough to find relevant records while narrow enough to review in less than a week. Learn more. You can download the presentation slides here and watch the recording here.
Open Source: The Trademark Awakens
Open-source software is widely utilized to develop new products and enhance existing products, as well as offer an alternative or complement to proprietary offerings by individuals, organizations, and businesses. Trademarks are often the only protectable asset for open source projects, including viral “copyleft” licenses. In this webinar, Mitesh Patel of Hopkins & Carley explores common trademark issues that arise from use of open-source software and explains considerations for working with clients utilizing open source. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Take the Cry out of Crisis: Preparing Your Firm for the Unexpected
In business, reputation is everything. It only takes one misstep to cause irreparable damage to a law firm. Things happen, mistakes happen, crises happen, and succession happens. Negative revenue reports, layoffs, professional misconduct or malpractice, political alignments, loss of senior leaders, the departure of a practice group and attorney-rainmakers with large books of business, and cybersecurity data breaches are just some of the scenarios that have necessitated reputation management in recent years. Gina Rubel—a PR whiz and the founder and CEO of Furia Rubel Communications—addresses what your law firm can do to prevent and manage a crisis scenario. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Fun with Non-Fungibles: NFT and blockchain basics for IP attorneys
What do the NBA, Snoop Dogg, and Taco Bell have in common? All have recently released non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Digital assets and currencies are transforming core concepts of intellectual property law. In this webinar, IP and cryptocurrency attorney Moish Peltz discusses the basics of the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and fungible and non-fungible tokens to ultimately explain the implications for the present and future practice of intellectual property law. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
See Your Practice through Rosé-Colored Glasses: Brand Protection for Wine Lawyers
Clients in the wine industry face particular challenges and have additional needs when developing and protecting their brands and related intellectual property. A lawyer developing a wine IP practice must keep the special nature of these laws and practices in mind when counseling clients on developing, promoting, protecting, and monetizing their wine brands. In this webinar, Laurie E. Hall of Synthesis Law moderates a panel discussion with lawyers at two of the largest wine producers in the United States: Simone M. Katz-O’Neill (Director & Senior Corporate Counsel at Delicato Family Wines) and Kathy Letourneau (Senior IP Counsel, Americas at Treasury Wine Estates). Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Teching Your Time Back: Easy ways to automate legal tasks
According to the 2018 Legal Trends Report, the average lawyer dedicates only 2.4 hours to billable work per day. Where do the other 6 hours go? If you’re spending your time doing data entry, scheduling follow-up reminders, organizing time entries, or other tedious tasks, there’s probably a tool for that. Technology these days has the potential to revolutionize practice. In this webinar, Joshua Lenon—Clio’s Lawyer in Residence—discusses how you can leverage legal technology to improve efficiencies and add more billable hours to your timesheet. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Search Party: Basic Principles of TESS Searches
In this webinar, John Miranda, a former USPTO trademark examiner and current attorney at Meister Seelig & Fein, guides you through the fundamentals of U.S. trademark searches. He explains USPTO examiners’ search strategies and gives advice about how private practitioners can mimic these strategies in order to effectively predict citations under Section 2(d). Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Canadian Trademarks: Like the United States, but… Different
In this webinar, Nathan Haldane of Fasken discusses the differences between trademark practice in Canada and the United States and provides you with all the information you need to advise your clients about filing in Canada. The realities of e-commerce mean that it is easier than ever to build your brand within Canada, and companies should consider Canada as a necessary part of any international brand strategy. Nathan sets out when and why businesses should begin applying for trademarks in Canada and what they can expect once they have done so. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Two Nations Divided by a Common Language: Similarities and Dissimilarities in UK and US Trade Marks
Trade mark practice in the UK may initially appear similar to that of the United States given the shared language, but while similarities do exist, there are also very real differences in law and procedure. In this webinar, hosted by Alt Legal and Meritas, Colin Sawdy of Meritas member law firm, Howard Kennedy LLP (England and Wales, UK) will provide a comparison of the two systems and highlight where US practitioners will need to be aware of key differences in UK practice. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.
Acting on the Trademark Modernization Act: How the implementation of the TMA will affect your practice
Enacted on December 27, 2020, the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (TMA), made significant changes to federal trademark law. To implement the TMA, the US Patent and Trademark Office has proposed and will be adopting new rules to take effect by December of 2021. In this webinar, Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld partner and former TPAC member Donna Tobin will address these significant rule changes and provide the information you need to know for when the rule changes go into effect. Learn more. You can download all of the webinar materials here and watch the recording here.