Spotlight
Practice Areas
Attorneys
Carrie Johnson Named Intellectual Property Trailblazer by the National Law Journal
Carrie A. Johnson was honored as an Intellectual Property Trailblazer by the National Law Journal, an honor given to professionals working as agents of change in their practice areas.
When asked about the path that made her a trailblazer, Ms. Johnson pointed to her work helping companies protect non-traditional trademarks, a vital part of their differentiation in the market. She discussed her work with Owens Corning. The company is the largest fiberglass composites manufacturer worldwide. In the US, it was the first company to trademark a color with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: PINK®, the color of the company’s insulation. Many countries have adopted laws making protection of non-traditional trademarks possible. Each country has its own formalities and required evidence, which is a challenge. Ms. Johnson and her team recently worked closely with the company and agents in Australia to obtain PINK® trademarks for two different shades of insulation. The effort took almost three years and years of evidence to support the registration.
Protecting brands is the heart of Ms. Johnson’s practice. Her practice concentrates in the areas of trademark, unfair competition, advertising and copyright law, with an emphasis on international and domestic portfolio management. Currently Ms. Johnson is the vice chair of the International Trademark Association’s Non-Traditional Trademarks Committee and is the past chair of the US Subcommittee for Non-Traditional Trademarks. Through these activities, Ms. Johnson is “leading efforts to review prosecution histories for non-traditional trademarks in the U.S. and elsewhere to identify and share prosecution trends and best practices with brand owners and practitioners seeking to register non-traditional trademarks and engaging with trademark offices around the world to advocate for the protection of non-traditional trademarks.”
Selection criteria for the National Law Journal’s Trailblazers are available here.
