The Tempnology Trademark Saga. When it comes to decisions on bankruptcy and trademark licenses, the In re Tempnology LLC bankruptcy case is the gift that keeps on giving.

  • The Original. It all started in November 2015. Following Tempnology’s rejection of an agreement containing a trademark licensee, the New Hampshire Bankruptcy Court ruled that

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If you doubted it before, you can stop now. The trend of courts finding ways to protect trademark licensees from the harsh effects of losing their trademark license rights in bankruptcy is in full swing.

The latest example comes in the Crumbs Bake Shop, Inc. Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in New Jersey. On October 31,

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Image Courtesy of NobMouse

Ken Adams, Professor Adrian Walters, and I recently collaborated on an article about the ubiquitous “termination on bankruptcy” or ipso facto clauses in contracts. The article was just published by the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section in its online publication, Business Law Today. It’s titled “Termination-On-Bankruptcy

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Image courtesy of  Kazuhisa Otsubo

Trademark Licenses At Risk. I have written a number of times on the blog about the impact of bankruptcy on trademark licenses, with a special focus on the risk that trademark licensees face if their licensors file bankruptcy. Trademark licensees have no protection under Section 365(n) of the Bankruptcy

Trademark licensees have long faced the serious risk of losing all license rights to a trademark if the licensor files bankruptcy and rejects the trademark license as an executory contract. However, a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the In re: Exide Technologies case may give some trademark licensees

Many companies rely on in-bound licenses of intellectual property, especially those involving patents or trade secrets, and spend millions of dollars on research, development, and ultimately commercialization of drugs or products incorporating the licensed IP. With so much at stake, licensees frequently ask a critical question: Can our license rights be terminated if the licensor

It looks like the U.S. Supreme Court, or at least two of the Justices, is interested in deciding whether the "hypothetical test" or the "actual test" should be used in determining whether an intellectual property license can be assumed by a debtor in possession under Section 365(c)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code. That was the clear message from the somewhat