The Vagos Motocrycle Club, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation has declared an outlaw motorcycle gang, has trademarked its jacket patch, replete with the trademark registration symbol, “in an effort to prevent law enforcement agencies from inserting undercover officers into their organization,” according to an FBI memo that surfaced on Tuesday.
A copy of the FBI’s memo regarding this may be found here.
Pfizer Inc. won a trademark case blocking drug makers in China from copying its Viagra erectile dysfunction pills’ blue diamond shape.
A Beijing court ordered the three companies to pay a $38,000 fine to Pfizer, stop producing the blue, diamond-shaped pills — which didn’t contain the active ingredient in Viagra — and print an apology in a Chinese legal newspaper, Pfizer said.
According to this article, Tom Cruise has been awared the domain name tomcruise.com by a WIPO UDRP panel. In a three-member WIPO panel, the domain name was taken from notorious domain name registrant Jeff Burgar and “returned” to Cruise.
Jeff Burgar owns and operates the fan website Celebrity1000.com, which in addition to featuring many third party advertisements, also includes information about celebrities, including Cruise. Burgar has also been involved in domain name disputes with the domain names CelineDion.com, MichaelCrichton.com, KevinSpacey.com, JeffreyArcher.com and others.
Cruise’s legal team made the following arguments: 1) the actor has “common law trademark and service mark rights” in the term Tom Cruise, 2) Burgar was making money from the domain through third-party ads on the Celebrity1000 website, and 3) and that internet users were likely to be confused and think that TomCruise.com was affiliated personally with the website.
Burgar, in this case, did not contest the fact that Cruise has trademark rights in his name. Instead, he argued that no likelihood of confusion exists because people who enter tomcruise.com are not expecting to get in touch with the actor or even “purchase” his services, such that they are alleged to be. They are looking for information about the actor. For my part, this is a valid argument.
Moreover, Burgar argued that he has owned the domain name for ten (10) years and, essentially, that laches should prevent Criuse from coming forward now to try to secure the domain name that he has lived without for ten (10) years. I also think this is a valid argument. It would certainly hold a lot of weight in a basic Trademark A vs. Trademark B lawsuit. I therefore do no see how the WIPO panel so quickly dismissed this argument insofar as WIPO arbiters are supposed to consider the relevant law – including laches.
It is cases like these that cause me concern about the future and validity of the UDRP system. All told, it is a weak, relatively ill-reasoned decision.
related materials >> WIPO Decision
According to this article, a Lithuanian restaurant chain wants trademark rights in the smell of pizza. It claims the smell for which it seeks protection is “closely associated” with its own pizzas.
“Opinion polls show that many consumers in Lithuania identify the pleasure of eating pizza with our trademark,” said Mindaugas Gumauskas, marketing director of the Cilija company. “This makes us believe that the scent of freshly baked pizza is a subject to our copyright.”
Or trademark…
…or close enough.
According to this article, actor and comedian Damon Wayans has been engaged with a battle at the USPTO to register the mark Nigga for a line of clothing and for retail store services.
According to Wayans’s applications, Wayans wants to dress customers in 14 kinds of Nigga attire from tops to bottoms, and use the controversial mark on “clothing, books, music and general merchandise,” as well as movies, TV and the internet. However, the USPTO has at least twice rejected Wayan’s application on the grounds that the mark is immoral or scandalous.
According to the Examining Attorney, While debate exists about in-group uses of the term, ‘nigga’ is almost universally understood to be derogatory.
Experts differ on Wayans’ chances of success. Some believe that this is akin to the recent registration of Dykes on Bikes.
The effort to commercialize “nigga” drew a sharp response from a black school official who participated in a forum about the word earlier this month at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
“I don’t care for it in any form,” said Dr. Lonnie Williams, associate vice chancellor for student affairs. “Either way you pronounce it, spell it, anything associated with it — I find it offensive.”
If Wayans succeeds in persuading the Trademark Office to permit the mark, he may have to deal with Keon Rhodan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur in Charleston, South Carolina, who has been using “Nigga” on a line of T-shirts, hoodies and other attire for six years in a part-time, trunk-of-his-car business.
Rhodan attempted to register “Nigga’Clothing” as a trademark in 2001 and was denied by the Trademark Office.
“They said it was disparaging,” he said.
Rhodan, who is black, said that he’s sold around 2,000 of the shirts at events. When he began selling the shirts, emblazoned with the term “Nigga,” he thought he would take criticism, especially from older people.
“I was in the mall with one of the shirts on, and an old lady said, ‘Where did you get that shirt from?’” he said, expecting the worst. “She followed me to the car and bought five shirts for her grandchildren.”
Rhodan believes that affectionate use of the term within the black community should make it an acceptable mark, but the Trademark Office has thus far has not been persuaded by that argument.