Twin Cities quasi-celebrity Kieran Folliard grabbed headlines this week by suing the owners of Jameson Irish Whiskey, Pernod Ricard, for trademark infringement. Folliard is well known in the Twin Cities for founding a chain of pubs, including Cooper, Kieran’s Irish Pub, The Liffey, and The Local. Of these, The Local serves a locally well-known drink… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Trademarks
Subscribe to Trademarks RSS FeedLouboutin Red-Sole & Surrounding Contrast: An Implied Trademark Limitation
Posted in Articles, Branding, Fair Use, Infringement, International, Law Suits, Marketing, Mixed Bag of Nuts, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Sight, TrademarksThe Louboutin lacquered red sole trademark is the subject of great debate in the trademark world, fashion industry, popular news media, and among law school academics and friends of the court. I’m just not seeing it. I really don’t see a viable trademark claim here for Louboutin. Not for the reasons found by the district court — I… Continue Reading
I’m Dye-ing to Know
Posted in Advertising, Non-Traditional Trademarks, SightFor those of you who frequent DuetsBlog, you’ll know that color trademarks are a common topic of discussion. Steve Baird posted an excellent and thought provoking post just recently discussing Louboutin’s efforts to litigate the boundaries of its rights in the color red. It is generally accepted that color trademarks can receive protection upon obtaining ”secondary meaning” (i.e…. Continue Reading
Creepy. Distasteful. But not at all surprising. The Blue Ivy Trademark.
Posted in Branding, Guest Bloggers, Mixed Bag of Nuts, TrademarksBrand valuation and kids: Jay-Z, Beyonce and The Blue Ivy brand
Louboutin Red: Blending Into the Background
Posted in Branding, Fair Use, Infringement, Law Suits, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Sight, TrademarksA purely hypothetical puzzle, but I’m wondering, would Christian Louboutin have a viable trademark claim if Yves Saint Laurent sold women’s shoes in boxes bearing the above seemingly random grid of letters, each letter having equal type, style, font, color and emphasis? For those of you who answered with a strong “of course not,” I suspect your answer must change if selected… Continue Reading
Does the Trademark Office Need a Trademark Attorney?
Posted in Counterfeits, Infringement, SoapBox, TrademarksA few times each year, clients will call or write and inquire about some official-looking correspondence they’ve received about a trademark registration or application. That happened this week, and here’s the top portion of the official-looking correspondence (redacted): You can see the full page here. If you read the fine print, this letter from the… Continue Reading
Crack Pie, Compost Cookie, and Other Delicious Trademark Registrations
Posted in Food, TrademarksOn a recent trip to New York City, I found myself at the infamous Momofuku Milk Bar selecting some interesting delicacies. For anyone who hasn’t been, Momofuku Milk Bar can best be described as a bakery, but it’s unlike any bakery I have ever been to, and you’re talking to one lady who loves baked… Continue Reading
Chevy Silverado Super Bowl Ad
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Fair Use, False Advertising, Food, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Television, TrademarksAbsorbing all the television commercials in between football action on the field can be as much fun on Super Bowl Sunday as the actual game itself, at least for trademark and marketing types, especially when your favorite team isn’t even on the field. One of my personal favorites from this past weekend’s Super Bowl XLVI was the… Continue Reading
Insuring a Great Super Bowl Trademark Fight
Posted in Advertising, Almost Advice, Articles, Branding, Fair Use, Infringement, Law Suits, Marketing, TrademarksSo, tomorrow is the big day, the big game, or whatever else other intimidated advertisers might call it. I just want to find the best deal on a flat screen television today! But, more to Mike Masnick’s point on Techdirt about the NFL’s reputation as a “trademark bully,” and his challenge to advertisers — “It’s the Super Bowl…. Continue Reading
Not a Merchandising Masterpiece
Posted in Television, TrademarksOne of my favorite shows on TV right now is Downton Abbey. No mere period drama, this Masterpiece Theatre presentation has become something of a sleeper sensation, partly for its swooning melodrama and partly for its (some would say romanticized) illustration of the English class system, following the upstairs-downstairs lives of the denizens of a… Continue Reading
Redefining a Trademark Bully?
Posted in Almost Advice, Articles, False Advertising, Mixed Bag of Nuts, SoapBox, TrademarksWe’ve spilled a lot of digital ink discussing the trademark bullying topic, going all the way back to my original blog post from 2010: ”The Mark of a Real Trademark Bully.” Within the last several days, there has been quite a bit of online media coverage about Trademarkia’s new features that tout an ability to “Find… Continue Reading
Grab Some Buds and Pop a Red Top (or Tab)?
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Product Packaging, TrademarksGiven how much we know you enjoy the subject of non-traditional trademark protection, here is a recent one from Anheuser-Busch: The description of the mark reads: “The mark consists of a design feature of product packaging, namely, a red colored tab on a can, which features a crown design that is transparent. The dotted lines… Continue Reading
Clap Your Hands if You Believe in Fairies (Food)
Posted in TrademarksI celebrated Christmas in Wisconsin for the first time this year, and in addition to trying new beers and gallivanting around Milwaukee, I was introduced to a delicacy I had yet to encounter in life: fairy food. Fairy food, for those non-believers, is a chocolate candy, with a sponge-like center made from corn syrup and… Continue Reading
College vs. Pro: Battle for Logo Use?
Posted in Branding, Guest Bloggers, TrademarksAs a long-time Green Bay Packer fan (and, more recently, owner), I’ve always had an innate dislike of our old NFC Central and other-team-named-after-a-body-of-water rival, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. When I learned this fall that those very same Buccaneers slapped my alma mater, Beloit College, with a cease-and-desist letter in the late-1990s, Tampa Bay attained a… Continue Reading
When it Comes to Guest Blogging: Fine or Just Fine?
Posted in Branding, False Advertising, Food, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, TrademarksIn many contexts of our life experience, "fine" sadly seems to have drifted toward embodying mediocrity. Consider this all too common dialogue: "How are you?" "Oh, I’m fine." Or, perhaps, "Just fine." Translation: "O.K.," "average," "acceptable," "passable," "satisfactory," "I can’t complain," "I’ve been better," or maybe "could be much better" . . . . After all, how interested or… Continue Reading
Lacking Credibility
Posted in Almost Advice, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksI’ll have to say, I really enjoyed Aaron Keller’s guest post from yesterday. In addition to the valuable insights he provided, it got me thinking about some perhaps unrelated, but parallel topics of likely interest to legal and marketing types. Aaron wrote about the importance of a brand being honest with itself and others. He expressed the need… Continue Reading
Webinar: Hot Marketing Topics with Trademark & Legal Implications
Posted in Branding, Genericide, Guest Bloggers, Look-For Ads, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Product Configurations, Product Packaging, TrademarksLast week I had the distinct pleasure of participating in a ninety-minute webinar with my good friend, frequent and eloquent guest-blogger on DuetsBlog – Aaron Keller of Capsule – complete with some friendly banter on the following: "Hot Marketing Topics with Trademark and Legal Implications." Minnesota Continuing Legal Education has generously provided a link where the webinar can be viewed in its entirety, here. As you’ll… Continue Reading
INTA Seeks to Aid in Protection of Color Trademark
Posted in Law Suits, Non-Traditional Trademarks, TrademarksThe International Trademark Association (“INTA”), formerly known as the United States Trademark Association (USTA), has been around since 1878—longer than the color trademark and high-end designer shoes. It is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the support and advancement of trademarks and related intellectual property concepts as essential elements of trade and commerce. This important organization… Continue Reading
O Brothers, Where Art Thou?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, Trademarks—John Reinan, Senior Director at Fast Horse, a Minneapolis marketing agency Growing up in Minnesota, I became familiar with cough drops at a young age. And that meant I became familiar with the Smith Brothers, Trade and Mark. You don’t know who they are? Well, take a look at the label reproduced here, on which… Continue Reading
What Does “W” Mean to You?
Posted in AlphaWatch, Branding, Food, Marketing, TrademarksThe letter "W" is an interesting one. Besides being the twenty-third letter in the alphabet, it is the only one having more than one syllable; it has three – unless it is pronounced with two: dub-yah. It is more than a bit ironic that — as a truncated single-letter brand — W, in most cases, has three times the syllables… Continue Reading
Mayo Clinic Logo loses lower case visual identity
Posted in Branding, Famous Marks, Marketing, TrademarksWe’ve already written a bit here about the trend toward lower-case branding and visual identity: Although I’d like to invite and actually welcome the far more professional wisdom of our trusted visual identity brethren and other learned branding and marketing types, until then, I’m guessing this trend has at least something to do with wanting to position a… Continue Reading
Top-Level Domain Names as Trademarks
Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Marketing, TrademarksThe Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently issued a precedential decision upholding the Trademark Office’s refusal to register five applications for the mark .MUSIC in connection with a variety of goods and services, holding that .MUSIC is merely descriptive of the goods and services. A PDF copy of the decision is here. A company called theDot Communications… Continue Reading
Occupy.
Posted in TrademarksYou know how when you say a word over and over again, or stare at it long enough, it stops making ordinary sense and starts becoming something else? To some extent, that’s how I’m beginning to feel about “occupy.” Regardless of what you may think about the movement – that it is democracy in action… Continue Reading
New York Times Covers “Eat More Kale” Trademark Dispute
Posted in Dilution, Food, Infringement, TrademarksYesterday the New York Times ran a story on the "Eat Mor Chikin" v. "Eat More Kale" trademark dispute — the same one we covered a week ago: Eat More Anything? A couple of quotes from the NY Times article caught my eye: "In a statement, Chick-fil-A said, ‘We must legally protect and defend our ‘Eat mor… 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...
Joy S. Newborg
When I took a personality/career test in high school to determine which path in life I should follow, I was told I should either be in broadcast journalism or law. So after I went to undergraduate school for broadcast journalism and film/television, I went on to obtain my law degree from the University of Minnesota. 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...