MEMBER CENTER
Monday, August 12, 2024
A plaintiff who alleges that a competitor is engaging in unfair competition under the Lanham Act, which protects unregistered trademarks from unfair competition, for selling a look-alike product, that is, a trade dress/product design claim, must establish, among other things, that the plaintiff’s design is not “functional.” It is this question of functionality that has caused courts the most problems, with a multiplicity of inconsistent decisions by the courts of appeal and an inscrutable decision by the U.S. Supreme Court at the center, all written about at length by numerous commentators. Don Vowell takes an in depth look into how functionality can be applied.
Murder in Chancery: “A Story of Bloodshed Which Never Had a Parallel in the City of Nashville”
Chancellor Andrew Allison of Tennessee’s sixth chancery division, comprising Davidson and Williamson counties, was the third president of the Tennessee Bar Association. He was also, according to Russell Fowler's latest deep dive into Tennessee legal history, killed outside of a courtroom in the old Davidson County Courthouse by his clerk and master.
Tennessee Bar Association members who have died recently are memorialized.
Artificial Intelligence and Public Schools: W.A. v. Clarksville-Montgomery County School System
In this TBJ Select-exclusive article, authors Justin Gilbert and Sophie Bruce walk readers through the case of a student, W.A., who received individualized education programs (IEPs) for his severe dyslexia throughout his school career. Tragically, those IEPs focused on fluency and comprehension without first teaching W.A. the more basic, foundational skill of how to read. By his senior year in high school, W.A. still could not consistently spell his own name.
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