If you were a Band-Aid brand adhesive bandage, and you were cut, would you protect yourself? Brent, sorry I couldn’t help myself, I’m still enjoying your Louis Vuitton waffle-maker post. With that intro, let’s turn another page to the Genericide Watch category, here at DuetsBlog: In focusing attention on the first item in the list shown above, to the… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: Abandonment
The Standard in Preventing Trademark Abandonment?
Posted in Articles, Branding, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksLike many industries, there has been much brand consolidation. The petroleum industry is a good example. I recall pumping gas in Iowa back in the late seventies — at a Phillips 66 gas station (recall that a couple of years ago Phillips merged with Conoco). While pumping gas in those days, I vividly remember long gas… Continue Reading
Who Owns a Dead Brand?
Posted in Branding, Goodwill, Guest Bloggers, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Trademarks, TTAB- John Reinan, Senior Director at Fast Horse, a Minneapolis marketing agency I love “orphan” cars — the marques that have gone out of business. Most of them are barely remembered by Baby Boomers, much less anyone younger. Packard, Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, Willys – these and other automakers often were stylistically and technically more advanced… Continue Reading
Managing The Legal Risk of “Verbing Up” Brands and Trademarks
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Domain Names, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksTrademark lawyers need to face the facts. Despite decades of ardent counseling to the contrary, business executives and marketers are not only testing the waters with the treatment of their most valuable brands as verbs, in some cases, they are diving in head first, committing substantial resources and effort toward the clearly stated goal of "verbing up" and having their brands used as verbs by… Continue Reading
Tavern on the Green Trademark Saga Continues
Posted in Goodwill, TrademarksOn December 9, 2009, I blogged about the trademark issues surrounding the famous Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park. Well, the New York landmark officially closed shortly after midnight on December 31, 2009, after a blow-out party for 1,700 on New Years Eve. The New York Times reported on the items currently being auctioned to… Continue Reading
Shopping for a Trademark
Posted in Advertising, Branding, TrademarksAre you shopping for a trademark? Stores spend lots of money branding their names. Accordingly, many register their store names as trademarks. Over Thanksgiving while shopping in Turkey, I saw the store front sign Inci®. I thought it was unique because you do not often see the ® on a store front sign. For example, you do… Continue Reading
Dialing in on Trademark Abandonment?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Sight, SoapBox, TrademarksWhat do these photos have in common, besides the fact that they are both from Roadsidepictures‘ beautiful photostream collection posted on Flickr? Well, one might say, they both illustrate a form of abandonment, an abandoned building on the left, and apparently some abandoned intellectual property in the form of a clock logo and ’round the… Continue Reading
The Looming Danger of Modernizing a Trademark
Posted in Almost Advice, Branding, Loss of Rights, TrademarksRecently, UnderConsideration’s Brand New blog commented on the new logo adopted by Much Music. After 10 years of using MUCHMOREMUSIC, the logo was changed to MUCHMORE. The new logo is aesthetically more pleasing, but the change raises an important issue. Modernizing old logos can result in abandonment of the old mark, which means a loss of all trademark rights… 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...