Diageo, one of the world’s largest spirits conglomerate, doesn’t like a local Oregon vinter using a mark similar to its own.
One of Diageo’s Napa Valley, California subsidiaries is Provenance Vineyards and doesn’t like the fact that Timothy Ramey has been using and filed a trademark application for Belle Provenance Vineyard.
So, Diageo is opposing Ramey’s application for Belle Provenance Vineyard.
In the U.S. District Court in Des Moines (Iowa), pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson has filed a lawsuit against local Des Moines company Qualis, Inc. claiming that Qualis’s product packaging infringes J&J’s warming KY Jelly trade dress, and that Qualis’s formulation infringes J&J’s patent for its warming KY Jelly lubricant.
In an unusual role reversal, the Walt Disney Company finds itself on the right side of the “v.”
While Disney hopes to release its film “Wild Hogs” in summer of 2007. However, the Hells Angels Motocycle Corp. is raising legal issues.
Specifically, Hells Angels claims that “Disney has not received approval for use of Hells Angels’ trademark–the helmeted and feathered skull–and has continued to use the symbol in marketing for ‘Wild Hogs.’”
On March 14th, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced in a press release that the Director General Dr. Kamil Idris opened on March 13, 2006 a diplomatic conference on intellectual property for a new treaty in the field of trademarks.
This is the first time that a diplomatic conference organized by WIPO is held in Asia.
Member states will benefit from the revised Trademark Law Treaty, as it will improve the international environment for trade and investment. It will enable national and regional trademark administration authorities to benefit from simplified procedures, including electronic means of communication. “This will contribute to reducing procedural transaction costs and enhance confidence in the trademark system as well as to provide additional incentives for business to further invest and expand,” he said.
For brand owners, Dr. Idris said, the new treaty will result in the simplification and harmonization of trademark procedures. “The resulting savings can be expected to further stimulate businesses to develop and market their brands,” he added.
The Trademark Law Treaty was concluded in 1994 with a view to streamlining and simplifying, on a worldwide basis, administrative procedures relating to national and regional trademark applications and the maintenance of trademark registrations.
Companies seeking to clear and register trademarks or to license their brands must, as a first step, meet certain formal registration requirements in order to avoid rejection of their application and a consequent loss of rights. These formalities generally vary from one country to another and the TLT has successfully introduced standard requirements to be followed in procedures before trademark offices.
P&G files lawsuit against a Canadia company for trademark infringement. P&G claim that First Quality Hygienics LifeBrand tampon and trade dress infringe P&G’s Tampax Pearl.
The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
P&G claims that First Quality is copying the Tampax Pearl packaging and the string-of-pearls design.
Speculation abounds about Microsoft’s recent trademark application for the mark RELERANK.
I will leave others to speculate.
A British technology company is accusing Swiss stock exchange SWX of acting in bad faith in a case that could lead to a claim for millions of pounds against the bourse, according to legal documents.
SWX Swiss Exchange is accused by Oxford Virtual Markets (OVM) of misappropriating the trademark to its electronic trading platform, VIRTEX, according to the documents.
The Swiss bourse uses the name virt-x for its own exchange, where some of Switzerland’s biggest companies are traded. Before adopting this name, SWX had met OMV to talk about a joint venture, the British company alleges.
Discussions between OVM and SWX, which was represented by senior executives including then Chief Executive Antoinette Hunziker-Ebneter and Chief Operating Officer Juerg Spillmann, began in 1998 and ended in April 1999, according to the documents.
According to people familiar with the matter, it was agreed then that the trademark VIRTEX and related technology was owned by OVM and its wholly owned subsidiary, Advanced Transaction Systems (ATS).
SWX, though, did not form a joint venture with OVM but began to use a trademark that OVM claims is similar enough to its own to cause confusion, according to the legal documents.
OVM is now accusing the Swiss exchange of breach of contract and bad faith for registering the trademark as virt-x in the knowledge that it was owned by the British firm.
In Europe there are few precedents of stock exchanges being taken to court, lawyers said.
Neiman Marcus has filed suit against local Florida businessman Bill Thomson. Neiman Barkus, The House of Doggy Style, the little doggy boutique in Wilton Manors, is being sued by Neiman Marcus for trademark infringement, dilution, etc.
Here’s the funny part:
And boutique owner Bill Thomson couldn’t be happier.
‘When the process server came to the store Friday afternoon I said, `Oh, cool — I’ve been waiting for these. Where do I sign?’ ” he said.
Thomson said the process server looked at him as though he were crazy.‘He said to me, `I’ve been serving people for years and this is the first time someone was happy to see me.’ ”
Thomson reasons:
”I have my entire life savings invested in this store. If I give in, I go under. I have no choice but to fight, beat the odds, and win. I’m ready to fight.”
Sometimes, the underdogs win:
While underdogs like Thomson often lose when they go against big corporate dogs, sometimes they pull out a victory after winning the last round.
Dog perfume manufacturer John Harris spent three years fighting designer Tommy Hilfiger over trademark infringement when he launched Tommy Holedigger Dog Cologne — Strong Enough for a Man, but made for a Chihuahua
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After spending six figures in court costs, Harris won in a New York court in 2002.
Southern District of New York Chief Justice Michael Mukasey wrote in his decision that Hilfiger fails to see the humor in this “and is advised to chill.”
Computer store owner Charles Smith is suing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for the right to continue selling T-shirts critical of the company, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
Smith claims to have been making a point by comparing the giant retail company to the Nazis by creating T-shirt designs including “I (heart) WAL*OCAUST. They have family values and their alcohol, tobacco and firearms are 20% off,” the newspaper reported.
Wal-Mart launched a legal battle by writing a cease-and-desist demand that led Smith to file suit Monday in federal court in Atlanta. Former presidential hopeful Ralph Nader’s legal aid group, Public Citizen, is helping Smith, the report said.
“It’s about free speech and the right to comment on corporations and their images and their trademarks,” said Paul Alan Levy, the Public Citizen lawyer representing Smith. “Just because the trademark owner doesn’t like [it] doesn’t mean it isn’t a permissible use of language.”
In his suit, Smith asks the court to rule that his products are protected by the First Amendment and do not infringe on Wal-Mart’s trademark because there is no likelihood someone might think they were sponsored by Wal-Mart, the newspaper said.
Wal-Mart said it was required by trademark law to protect its name and logo, the Times reported.
Smith, a 48-year-old father of three from Conyers, Ga., said he made the designs after thinking that Wal-Mart’s destructive effect on people and neighborhoods was like the destruction wrought by the Holocaust, the Times said.
AstraZeneca has today announced the acquisition of Vancocin CP (Vancomycin) trademark from Eli Lilly for the India and Nepal markets.
Vancocin CP, widely-considered the treatment of choice for resistant bugs called MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), ideally complements AstraZenecas flagship brand Meronem, the broad spectrum antibiotic with proven efficacy against ESBL (extended spectrum beta-lactamase) producers.
According to Bhasker Iyer, managing director, AstraZeneca Pharma India, AstraZeneca already has a strong presence in the intensive care unit (ICU) set up with Meronem. Vancocin CP, with its strong brand equity and leadership in the Indian market, is a perfect fit and will enhance and further strengthen our existing portfolio.
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Eli Lilly India has been promoting Vancocin CP since 1994 and commands a 54 per cent market share. AstraZenecas augmented portfolio now offer clinicians a valuable synergistic combination to effectively manage patients with serious infections that are difficult to detect and treat, said Iyer.
As someone who has and does work closely with pharmaceutical companies, this story is very interesting.