9th Circuit Holds Equity Shares Aren’t ‘Goods’ Under Lanham Act

( January 6, 2025, 10:38 AM EST) -- SAN FRANCISCO — A partly split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s dismissal of an American legal services website company’s trademark infringement suit against a similarly named Japanese legal software company beginning to sell equity shares to American investors, holding that selling equity does not meet the Lanham Act’s criteria of the sales of goods and services....