Apparently at least one member of this WIPO UDRP panel did not appreciate his time being wasted with frivolous claims and less-than-truthful statements by the Complainant.

Read it here.

It seems that just because you may own a major brand, people are not necessarily tweeting about you or your brand.  Of all Twitter traffic (i.e., “tweets”), only 10% are generated by the brand owners themselves.  Of those, only 12% mention their brands.  Check it out.

We would like to thank CTCorsearch for including our blog on its blogroll at its own Trademark + Brands Blog.  So, thank you, we appreciate it.

According to The New York Times…

Leo Stoller, that is.  We posted about him in January 2007, here.  In a nutshell, Mr. Stoller has been repeatedly admonished – and sanctioned – by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for his behavior.

Well, it seems that, in some form, Mr. Stoller is back. 

Here’s one specimen he filed:

Here’s a second:

Is he kidding?

With regard to the basketball “specimen,” we located 49 occurrences of the same image (minus “STEALTH” and “NBA”) (using TinEye).  We’re not sure how long the results page will remain active, but you can check out the results here.  Fraud on the USPTO?  We think so.

Tonight CNBC will premiere its show Crime Inc.:  Counterfeit Goods tonight, July 14 at 9 PM.  From the CNBC web site:

Fake handbags, watches, shoes and perfumes. The business of Counterfeit Goods is the largest underground industry in the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars are generated while sapping the economy, putting lives in jeopardy, and funding organized crime in the process.
CNBC’s “Crime Inc.: Counterfeit Goods,” takes viewers on a rare look inside a global crime spree, where the goods are produced and confiscated in a world of high-risk and high-reward.
Host Carl Quintanilla takes you on raids with the LAPD anti-counterfeiting unit, inspections at ports, and back-room factories where counterfeits are produced. Meet a company whose whole brand was copied, and the story of a defense contractor who counterfeit defense parts that found their way into weapons depots in Iraq.
At around 7% of all global trade, Counterfeit Goods are a big business with low overhead. It makes too much money to go away any time soon.

You can also view a slideshow of the Top 10 seized goods.

For a discussion of trademark infringement in virtual realities (like Second Life), see here.