Now that kids are back to school and summer is coming to a close, this billboard advertisement has disappeared from I-94 just outside of downtown Minneapolis. Before it vanished from the roadside, however, I thought to capture it to tell a little trademark tale here, one from years past, but one that remains relevant, important, and applicable to trademark claims involving the color black. As… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: August 2010
To Do: Get Your .CO Domains
Posted in Almost Advice, Domain Names, Marketing, TruncationWhat a difference a year makes. Last year, I wrote about the .CM top-level domain as a potentially popular typographical variant of the ubiquitous .COM. In that post, I mentioned that it did not appear that widespread commercialization of .CO was in the works. Well, .CO domains are available and out there. Go get them. Now!
Generic Domain Names Still Striking Gold
Posted in Domain NamesBy way of update to a previous post, some are still occasionally hitting the jackpot on generic domain names. At the recently concluded DomainFest auction, Tshirts.com sold for $1.2 million, and Quotes.com sold in the extended online auction last week for $1.15 million. Granted, these sales are an order of magnitude less than Fund.com that… Continue Reading
Seth Godin Enlightens Linchpins in Minneapolis
Posted in Advertising, Branding, TrademarksMarketing maven, strategist, visionary, and best-selling author Seth Godin spent a day at Pantages Theater in Minneapolis last Thursday, providing much food for thought among not only the attending crowd, but those following the dialogue on Twitter too. The sushi and cupcake lunch Seth selected, and that we enjoyed, on the roof of neighboring Seven, was pretty nice too…. Continue Reading
“Hot Wheels” Casino Promotion: Apparently Not a Toy Story
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Dilution, Famous Marks, Marketing, Trademarks, TTABLast month I came across this enormous, larger than life, banner advertisement hanging from the exterior of a casino on our way to the backwoods of Wisconsin. Of course, this promotional piece took me back to my early childhood and called to mind my long lost enormous collection of Matchbox brand Hot Wheels toy cars and… Continue Reading
Nominative Fair Use of Trademarks in Domain Names
Posted in Domain Names, Fair Use, Famous Marks, Infringement, Law Suits, TrademarksLast month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in the case of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. v. Tabari that asked whether the domain names buy-a-lexus.com and buyorleaselexus.com used in connection with automobile brokerage services infringed Toyota’s trademark rights in LEXUS. Conventional legal wisdom is that only the owner of a trademark… Continue Reading
Taking Branding Cues from Q in the Single-Letter Trademark Queue
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food, Marketing, Trademarks, TruncationWelcome to another edition of AlphaWatch (the next one in our queue), where we explore the reach of single-letter trademarks, this time focusing on the letter Q and the single-letter branding cues it might suggest to consumers: Are you able to name the un-truncated version of this single-letter mark and brand? My daughter could. The answer is… Continue Reading
The Barbarians Are at the 3PAR Gate
Posted in Almost AdviceHewlett-Packard (“HP”) and Dell are engaged in battle over the acquisition of 3PAR. 3PAR is a small storage company that has innovative technology to handle the amounts of documents, photos, and videos being uploaded to the Internet every day. Just how important is this storage company HP and Dell’s cloud business? Thomson Reuters estimate that 3PAR’s revenue for… Continue Reading
Wary of Trademark Infringement?
Posted in Guest Bloggers—Mark Prus, Marketing Consultant at NameFlashSM I am a professional name developer. As part of my naming service, I employ a trademark attorney to give me advice on the availability of the names I develop. If there is any question about the availability of a name, I either strike it from the client submission or… Continue Reading
Ringy Dingy: A Handy PR Tool for Trademark Lawyers
Posted in Mixed Bag of NutsYears ago I recall hearing a veteran trademark lawyer warn intellectual property continuing legal education attendees, "When your toolbox only has a hammer in it, everything in your world starts to look like a nail." Fair enough. It’s time for all of us to revisit the contents of our professional toolbox. Last week, following the firestorm of criticism surrounding Best Buy’s cease and desist… Continue Reading
Seth Godin on Subtlety: The Trademark Perspective
Posted in Branding, Goodwill, Look-For Ads, Marketing, Non-Traditional Trademarks, TrademarksSeth Godin’s recent post entitled Subtlety, deconstructed, struck a chord with me, and should strike a chord with all trademark types and the brand owners they represent. Here is my favorite excerpt: Subtle design and messaging challenge the user to make her own connections instead of spelling out every detail. Connections we make are more powerful than… Continue Reading
A Longer, Unnecessary Name for the Volvo Brand?
Posted in Advertising, Audio, Branding, Fair Use, Marketing, TrademarksSomeone who is in the business of repairing Volvo brand automobiles has the right to say so, in advertising, and elsewhere – without obtaining advance permission from Volvo – provided consumers aren’t likely to understand the advertisement or communication to mean that the repair services and/or the business providing them is authorized by, affiliated with, or otherwise connected to… Continue Reading
Thoughts on the God Squad Matter
Posted in Branding, Dilution, Goodwill, InfringementBy now, I assume that our readership is familiar with the "God Squad" story of this week’s news cycle. If not, the executive summary is that Best Buy recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to a priest in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin requesting that he cease using a logo on his black Volkswagen Beetle that says… Continue Reading
The Towels On The Beach Go ‘Round And ‘Round
Posted in Law SuitsDo you see the trademark in this picture? While one might be tempted to immediately focus on the Coca-Cola bottle and text, the actual trademark (or former trademark) which is the subject of this post is the shape of the towel.That’s right. Up until a recent 7th Circuit decision in Jay Franco & Sons, Inc. v. Clemens… Continue Reading
More from Jersey Shore
Posted in TrademarksUnbelievably, the MTV show Jersey Shore has presented even more material to blog about (see Sharon Armstrong’s previous blog Trademark Lessons from Jersey Shore here). Jersey Shore cast member Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is attempting to federally register her nickname “Snooki” as a trademark for books. Unfortunately, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has initially… Continue Reading
Marketing “Made in the USA” in 2010
Posted in Guest Bloggers—Jason Voiovich, Ecra Creative Group I have to admit, I was not prepared. Over the course of five business days last week, I had three separate clients asked my opinion – in one form or another – regarding marketing their products as "made in the USA." I guess everything old is new again. As I… Continue Reading
Exposing Two-Face Brands
Posted in AlphaWatch, Branding, Goodwill, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, TrademarksI’m not talking about brands that say one thing and do another. I’m not talking about brands that don’t live up to their promise. I’m literally talking about brands with two faces. One face may be confident, complicated, technical, professional, and/or formal. Let’s call him, Stephen. The other face might be friendly, simple, approachable, engaging, and/or informal… Continue Reading
An Illuminating Tale of Likely Confusion
Posted in Branding, TrademarksQuiz time. Here’s the setup: Company A owns the following registered trademarks for use in connection with the listed goods: MAXSTAR for "electric lanterns" MAGNUM MAX for "hand-held electric spotlights" MAXFIRE for "portable, battery-operated lighting products, namely flashlights" Company B owns these registered trademarks: MAG-LITE and MAGLITE for "flashlights" MAG for "flashlights" MAG-NUM STAR for "flashlight bulbs"… Continue Reading
Has The Structure Brand Crumbled?
Posted in MarketingWhich brands come to mind when you think of Sears? Craftsman, Kenmore, Lands End? …what about Structure? During a recent trip to Sears I found myself walking past this Sears sign for its clothing brand, Structure. I was struck by a memory of the Structure men’s clothing store of the late ‘90s which vanished to be replaced… Continue Reading
Imitation. The greatest form of flattery?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Fair UseIn June, guest blogger David Mitchel wrote a very interesting post about the revitalization of the Old Spice brand. And unless you have been living under a rock, you have likely seen more than one of the “Old Spice Guy” commercials featuring former NFL wide-receiver Isaiah Mustafa. I have to admit; I think these commercials… Continue Reading
Mastering Your Domain
Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Guest Bloggers, Trademarks—Nancy Friedman, Chief Wordworker at Wordworking; and author of Fritinancy “All the good ones are taken!” Without fail, that’s the lament I hear most frequently from my naming clients. They’re not complaining about legally available trademarks—they’re talking about Internet domains. They want short ones: five letters would be nice. (Uh-huh.) They want “clean” ones: no… Continue Reading
All in the Name of Vicious Domain Name Grabbing?
Posted in Domain Names, Goodwill, International, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines, Social Networking, TrademarksWe thought we had arrived when DuetsBlog made a listing of the Top 100 Branding Blogs, and it also was kind of nice when the DuetsBlog mark became federally registered, but now it appears we have reached yet another level of notoriety, appreciation, and respect altogether, as DuetsBlog is now receiving the most thoughtful of email solicitations all the way from Hong… Continue Reading
Generic Domain Names: Unprotectable Yet Invaluable
Posted in Domain Names, Law SuitsFor those keeping score at home, various courts and tribunals have previously held the following domain names to be generic in connection with the listed goods or services: BLINDSANDDRAPERY.COM for wholesale and retail services "featuring blinds, draperies and other wall coverings" BONDS.COM for "providing information regarding financial products and services" CONTAINER.COM for "rental of metal shipping… Continue Reading
Pitfalls in Naming the New
Posted in BrandingI am currently in my home state of California, a place known to some as “the land of fruits and nuts.” (Although, “the Left Coast” is my favorite of these playfully derisive names for California.) California is indeed the fruit basket of the United States, producing 51% of the nation’s fruit. And amongst the growing and… Continue Reading
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Duets Blog Authors
Steve Baird
Just so you know, I'm all about brands and the law, both professionally and personally. I regularly annoy family and friends in retail stores by focusing on product labels—not to buy the product, but to read the fine print and ask, "Who owns these brands" and "Did they really register those marks?" More...
Dan Kelly
You can call me a “non-traditional” attorney, which is a polite way of saying that I did not attend law school straight out of college. I spent five of my first six years after college as a junior high school teacher. The other year I worked as an engineer for a large corporation. More...
Sharon Armstrong
Voted most likely to become an actress while in pre-school, I don’t think I surprised anyone by becoming a lawyer, the steadiest professional gig open to those with a flair for the dramatic. More...
Brent Lorentz
Although I wish I could say my path to the law was the result of a lifelong dream or calling, it was more the result mere curiosity and an affinity for leather-bound books. More...
Catlan McCurdy
Having long been told by my parents that I could do or be anything I wanted, I chose at the age of 10 to become an attorney, as it was the career that would most likely lead me to my goal of becoming the first woman POTUS.More...
Tiffany Blofield
Although my initial career path was to be one of the Supremes (not the musically talented ones with platform shoes and sequins, but rather, the nine wearing sensible shoes and pressed black robes in DC), I will likely stay in Minnesota as I have never lived anywhere else. More...
Brad Walz
My law career started on the ice…as a defensive hockey player (we’re not talking professionally…and if I were, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into law). More...
Susan Perera
Born into the world with an aptitude for science and an affinity for art I found my career path quickly chosen for me. More...
Derek Allen
In hindsight, writing about creativity and the law may have always been in the cards for me. I began training for a career in litigation at an early age by finding ways to disagree with pretty much anyone about pretty much anything. In my longest-running “case,” I argued with my middle school math teacher, Mrs. Jabs, for the better part of four years over whether, even if I got the right answer, I had to show my work to get full credit. More...
Laura Gutierrez
An attorney I am not. Though told to become one, I don't possess those qualities needed to be an effective one (I lack confrontation skills, and although I can write a great argumentative essay, I can’t argue outside a sheet of paper). More...