New York, NY (July 6, 2020) –Phillips Nizer LLP has added two partners and three counsel to its premier intellectual property, family law and commercial litigation practices.

Tod M. Melgar will lead the firm’s Patent Litigation and Prosecution practice as a partner in the New York office. Mr. Melgar joins from Sills Cummis & Gross. Gerard Haddad, a patent litigator, joins the New York office as counsel.

Stephanie F. Lehman has joined the firm’s Matrimonial and Family Law practice as a partner, along with counsel Fara K. Rodriguez. Ms. Lehman and Ms. Rodriguez, who maintain an active practice in both New York and New Jersey, were formerly with Arons & Solomon.  

Elana T. Henderson will join the firm as counsel in the firm’s Litigation practice.

“We are very pleased to welcome Stephanie, Fara, Tod, Gerry and Elana to Phillips Nizer. All five of them are sophisticated attorneys and effective advocates, and our clients will benefit from the expanding breadth and depth of our services,” said Marc Landis, Phillips Nizer Managing Partner.
 

Pittsburgh PA, June 30, 2020 – As part of its continued efforts surrounding the Negro Leagues Centennial Anniversary, The Josh Gibson Foundation and Josh Gibson Enterprises announced today that Ed Schauder, the Chairman of the Sports Law Practice Group at Phillips Nizer, LLP has been named authorized legal representative for licensing for both entities. 

“It is recommended that employers review their policies and training protocols to ensure that they adequately address the extended protections,” says Regina Faul, labor and employment chair at Phillips Nizer, a law firm specializing in labor issues. “Additionally, further training of managers, supervisors and employees should include best practices for implementing and maintaining a diverse workforce with a culture of inclusion and acceptance.”

The Black Lives Matter movement has placed racial injustice and police violence at the centre of social and political discussion. It has also led to calls for consumers to support local black-owned businesses. The latter provides an opportunity for the IP community to step up and help ensure that SMEs have easy access to IP advice and services – with one legal expert stating: “This is something we absolutely can do.”

The Fashion Law Interest Group meeting coincides with the International Trademark Association (INTA) annual conference.  It is not, however, associated with or sponsored by INTA. The Group's attendees include outside counsel representing fashion designers, luxury apparel and accessories companies and retailers, in-house counsel and retail executives.

[Photo Credit: Copyright 2019. Candace R. Arrington]

Phillips Nizer is pleased to host Paul Stuart, Inc., the American fashion brand, on Tuesday, April 16th at the firm's New York City office for a lunch presentation and trunk show.  

Lunch Presentation:  12:30 PM
Trunk Show:  9:00 AM - 7:00 PM*

RSVPs required for the lunch and/or to schedule a *personal fitting by April 15th to: events@phillipsnizer.com  

Paul Stuart offers fashions for men and women, and they will be showcasing customLAB, the latest innovation in made to measure suiting for men, and their Spring 2019 women's collection. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting families and relationships across the country, now more than ever, working through the realities of divorce can be incredibly challenging.  In addition to the multitude of difficult decisions to be made, families are forced to determine how best to proceed when economic and social norms have been turned upside down. 

Due to the challenges facing us in these unprecedented times, individuals considering or going through a divorce should keep in mind several factors.  In this article, various topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic will be explored from the different perspectives of New Jersey family law attorneys from Phillips Nizer and wealth advisors from Mariner Wealth Adivsors.

Phillips Nizer Managing Partner Marc Landis weighs in on challenges facing the legal industry during Managing Partners Roundtable at the NYSBA's annual meeting.

This week’s US Supreme Court decision that Booking.com is not generic might lead to a larger use of consumer surveys. 

Alan Behr, partner at law firm Phillips Nizer in New York City, points out that in the oral arguments the attorney for Booking.com said marks like the brand are relatively weak. Weak marks in the fashion industry aren’t a good idea, Behr says.

He notes that someone could theoretically register a domain name like menssocks.com and have a basis for protection. But he says this would still be a weak basis because someone else could register menssocks.info.

“Then you get into a lawsuit involving survey evidence and experts about whether that’s confusingly similar or not.”

Because of this, companies in fashion should be wary of picking a generic name, even if a marketing person really loves it, Behr says.

“When in doubt in fashion, go for a strong mark. It will pay itself back many times over in benefits. The fact that the court had concurring and dissenting opinions shows that when you have a mark that’s just over the line, like Booking.com, you’re going to have questions.”

Most brand owners would undoubtedly prefer not to have to argue in front of the Supreme Court to get a trademark registration in the first place. But those that do have to fight for their marks would be wise to take advantage of any evidence, including consumer surveys, that’s available to them.

“Interestingly, the owner of the mark BOOKING.COM admitted in oral argument before the court that it is a ‘weak mark,’ but  the court found it to be a mark just the same.  In my experience, marketers are rarely daunted by legal evaluations of the relative strength of marks. If a marketer loves a mark, whether it is as strong as titanium or as weak as tissue paper, he or she will usually go for it and let the law follow along as best it knows how. In this case, the law did just that.

What the case likely means is that there can be no automatic rejection of an application to register a mark that is simply a combination of a generic term such as ‘booking’ and a familiar top-level domain extension such as ‘.com.’  It does not, however, mean that any such combination would necessarily be registered as a trademark.  That is, you cannot take any generic term and add “.com” to it and say you definitely have a registrable mark for any goods or services.  Each case would still need to be examined on its own merits.  The Supreme Court noted, for example, that ART.COM is already registered as a trademark but did not make a new rule that all such combinations are automatically registrable.  What the case signifies is that, in the Internet age, top-level domain extensions, when added to generic terms might well create registrable marks.  And that is news—an important clarification from the Supreme Court of how old law applies to the new tricks of electronic commerce.”

The board, consisting of twenty renowned litigators, is responsible for providing input and consulting on new products, offering feedback on enhancements to current offerings, and giving its advice on the direction of future litigation and analytics solutions to Bloomberg Law, a leading provider of subscription-based services for online legal research.