Cockfighting in Puerto Rico and trade-dress protections for snack foods

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This week we spotlight cert petitions that question the Supreme Court docket to take into account, among the other factors, the electrical power of Congress to criminalize cockfighting underneath the commerce clause and the good definition of “functionality” as utilized to trade gown.

Puerto Rico is a United States territory, with its very own constitution. And like a state, it is an autonomous political entity sovereign over matters not lined by the United States Structure. For the earlier 400 decades, cockfighting has been practiced on the island and is continue to today proclaimed by Puerto Rican regulation to be a “cultural appropriate of all Puerto Ricans.” Whilst illegal underneath federal regulation considering the fact that 1976, Congress continued to allow cockfighting exactly where permissible underneath neighborhood regulation until finally 2018, when Congress passed Area 12616 of the Agriculture Improvement Act. Area 12616 removed the neighborhood regulation exemption of the Animal Welfare Act and proficiently criminalized cockfighting in Puerto Rico. In Ortiz-Diaz v. United States, numerous people today and corporations included in the Puerto Rican cockfighting field challenge the authority of Congress to govern what they take into account a neighborhood personalized. They insist that cockfighting is the island’s “national sport,” pointing to over 70 “cockpits” located through Puerto Rico, which host tens of thousands of cockfights every single year, supporting an estimated eleven,000 positions and making $65 million in yearly revenue.

The district court docket and the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 1st Circuit rejected the challengers’ lawsuit, keeping that Area 12616 was a good use of Congress’ authority to regulate commerce underneath the commerce clause mainly because of the considerable outcome cockfighting has on interstate commerce. The challengers declare that these kinds of a keeping raises federalism considerations, insisting that cockfighting is an inherently neighborhood difficulty that Puerto Ricans have the appropriate to govern separate from the federal government. They also argue that the regulation of animal sports activities has generally been left to the states, citing illustrations these kinds of as rodeos, livestock demonstrates, horse racing and hunting. Also, they argue that cockfighting has no outcome on interstate commerce and question the justices to grant cert to enforce the “outer limits” of the commerce clause and restore Puerto Rican sovereignty over what it considers a genuine sport on the island.

Ezaki Glico Co. v. Lotte International The us Corp. offers the justices with an intellectual-assets query involving “trade dress” for the well known snack food items Pocky, a thin, rod-shaped biscuit with a chocolate or product coating. Trade gown refers to a product’s distinctive layout or condition, these kinds of as the tear-drop condition of a Hershey’s Kiss. To be entitled to trademark protections, a single prerequisite is that the distinctive trade-gown attribute cannot be “functional.”

Pocky and its competitor, as depicted in the cert petition.

Ezaki Glico Co., the maker of Pocky, sued Lotte International The us Corp., a rival snack-food items organization, following Lotte began providing a similar chocolate-coated biscuit snack. Glico argued that Lotte committed trade-gown infringement, but the district court docket and the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the third Circuit dominated that the layout of Pocky is purposeful. In its cert petition, Glico argues that the third Circuit utilized an improper definition of features – departing from conventional trademark doctrine and the greater part of other circuits – when it dominated that Pocky’s layout is “useful” for being eaten and shared. Glico argues that this definition lowers the threshold for features and that choice layouts serving the very same function must build a query of truth on features. The acknowledged tests for features, Glico carries on, classify a product’s aspect as purposeful only if it is necessary to the use or function, if it affects the charge or top quality, or if its distinctive use places opponents at a substantial disadvantage. Glico argues that a getting of features based on usefulness and “nothing more” threatens the uniformity of trade gown throughout the county and asks the court docket to announce the good exam for features.

These and other petitions of the week are underneath:

Ortiz-Diaz v. United States
twenty-1735
Challenge: No matter whether Congress has electrical power underneath the commerce clause to criminalize cockfighting on the island of Puerto Rico.

Morales-Vázquez v. QBE Seguros
twenty-1779
Challenge: No matter whether the conventional doctrine of uberrimae fidei (“utmost good faith”) carries on to apply in its demanding type (as held by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in the final decision underneath and also by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the third, ninth, and 11th Circuits), or is the doctrine confined to cases in which the insurer relied on a blunder or omission when issuing the plan (as held by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd and 8th Circuits), or is the conventional doctrine no more time portion of federal maritime regulation (as held by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 5th Circuit), or must the doctrine be modified to restrict an insurer’s capacity to avoid the plan (which would restore uniformity with the regulation in England).

Ezaki Glico Co. v. Lotte International The us Corp.
twenty-1817
Issues: (1) No matter whether trade gown is “functional” if it is “essential to the use or function of the article” or “affects the charge or top quality of the article,” as the Supreme Court docket and nine circuit courts have held, or if it is just “useful” and “nothing additional,” as the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the third Circuit held underneath and (2) regardless of whether the presence of choice layouts serving the very same use or function makes a query of truth with respect to features, exactly where the product’s layout does not have an affect on charge or top quality and is not claimed in a utility patent.

Lewis v. Pension Benefit Warranty Corporation
21-2
Challenge: No matter whether the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit improperly prolonged Chevron deference to Pension Benefit Assurance Corporation’s building of ambiguous statutory provisions in casual, non-binding adjudications carried out not in the agency’s congressionally assigned job as insurer (or in any other regulatory potential) but alternatively as a strategy trustee and fiduciary.

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