As promised, here are some further thoughts, lessons learned, and remaining unanswered questions concerning the recent and long-anticipated decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent Am. Holding, Inc. Lessons Learned for Marketing Types: Single color trademarks may be owned, registered, and protected when they are distinctive and… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Keyword Ads
Subscribe to Keyword Ads RSS FeedAnd the Oscar Goes To . . .
Posted in Advertising, Infringement, Keyword Ads, Law Suits, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksSuccessful trademark enforcement programs . . . .
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
Save Big What? Where?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksSeeing this Cartridge World vehicle bumper led me to wonder, is it possible to save anything big besides money? And, not to worry, I didn’t snap the photo, I was doing the driving. The www.savebig.com website doesn’t seem to offer any help answering my question. According to a more complete Cartridge World slogan, what ever it is you… Continue Reading
Trademark Initial Interest Confusion: It’s The Real Thing
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food, Infringement, Keyword Ads, Marketing, TrademarksA little while back I wrote about the Likelihood of Confusion test in Trademark Law and how it protects trademark owners against much more than simply likelihood of confusion as to source. I also wrote about how Wolf Appliance was able to convince a federal judge in Wisconsin to grant a preliminary injunction barring Viking Range from selling a… Continue Reading
The Sign of a Successful Trademark Enforcement Program
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Copyrights, Infringement, Keyword Ads, Law Suits, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksUnable to resist a good trademark story, I snapped this photo in one of the countless gift shops along Hollywood Boulevard, as my family searched for various stars and did the "Walk of Fame," a week or so ago. What drew us into this particular shop was a striking wall full of shelves displaying what appeared to be rows upon… Continue Reading
Big Numbers in Downloads and Domain Names
Posted in Advertising, Domain Names, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines–Dan Kelly, Attorney You may have heard the news that iTunes has hit the 10 billion (with a “b”) mark in number of songs downloaded. Sales began in 2003. That’s an average pace of more than 1.4 billion downloads a year. Considering that a typical single song retails for $0.99 on iTunes (likely higher than… Continue Reading
The Long and Short of Name Development
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Guest Bloggers, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines, Social Networking, Trademarksby Mark Prus of NameFlashSM Some of my name development clients are fans of long, keyword-rich names. Obviously the appeal of a search engine spotting your website is driving this approach. Some of my naming clients are fans of short names that can be easily shared on Twitter. Which approach is better? I will confess… Continue Reading
What a Crock, Pot That Is . . .
Posted in Branding, Genericide, Infringement, Keyword Ads, Law Suits, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksWe’re not talking the foamed footwear Crocs® that Randall Hull wrote about in his What a Croc! post from a couple of weeks ago. Instead, we’re talking slow cookers — on this snow-capped Valentine’s Day in the Twin Cities. Every once in a while a stroll down the grocery store aisle leaves me surprised when… Continue Reading
Essential Spacing: Night & Day Commercial Impressions
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines, Sight, TrademarksMillimeters apart on the label, miles apart in meaning. Yes, a few extra millimeters of blank space can make all the difference in the world for some brands. Especially when the brand name consists of two words, and the typical visual treatment has all letters appearing in identical size and style (all caps), and when compressing the words yields an unintended,… Continue Reading
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Advertising on the Internet
Posted in Advertising, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines, Social Networking–Dan Kelly, Attorney Professors at the University of Pennsylvania and at UC Berkeley School of Law released a study this week conclusively titled “Americans Reject Tailored Advertising,” suggesting that there is high resistance among individuals to tailored advertising on the Internet. (Press release from Penn here, NYT coverage here.) Although I have been unable to… Continue Reading
How About Summit Beer for the Beer Summit?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines–Dan Kelly, Attorney Sometimes the world hands you lemons, and sometimes it hands you lemonade . . . or free beer . . . or even free advertising. What serendipity for the Bud Light, Red Stripe, and Blue Moon brands that the media’s most recent tempest in a teapot has culminated in a ”Beer Summit,” and that… Continue Reading
Misleading Pharma Ads on Search Engines (Google)
Posted in Advertising, Almost Advice, Guest Bloggers, Keyword Ads, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksIn April the FDA sent formal letters to a number of pharma companies warning them of their misleading paid search ads in Google. Essentially the FDA wants pharma brands to put their full name of their product and associated risks in the ad. The problem as stated by pharma companies is that these paid search ads in… Continue Reading
Is Competitor Brand Targeting Right or Wrong?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Guest Bloggers, Keyword Ads, Search EnginesTime and time again we have had a client bring up the fact that one or more of their competitors is bidding on our client’s trademarked or company-oriented keywords on the search engines. When this happens to our clients they cry fowl and often run to us with the question, can my competitors bid on… Continue Reading
Keyword Ads…Have You Ever Wondered (Noticed, or Even Cared)?
Posted in Keyword Ads, Law Suits, Marketing, Search EnginesAndy Rooney from CBS’ Sixty Minutes made famous, “Have you ever wondered?” The more basic threshold questions should have been, “Did you even notice?” and “Does anyone even care?” Mr. Rooney had a knack for making us take notice, perhaps after the fact, because we never cared to wonder, at least, before he asked in… Continue Reading
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...
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...
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...
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...
Martha Engel
Although my interest in gadgetry and my aptitude for math eventually led me to become an engineer, my ad executive father and artistically gifted mother fostered an appreciation for the creative from a young age. More...
Anjali Shankar
When I was in elementary and middle school, I loved writing short stories. Creativity and imagination seem to come naturally to people when they are young. More...
Timothy Sitzmann
I have always considered myself to be a creative person. Full disclosure: I'm not claiming that I've created anything good, merely that I have created things that exist.More...