Legal departments sometimes get a bad reputation for saying “no” too often. A “no” from legal is particularly hard to stomach when you think the potential legal risk is farfetched. In this dispute, Wal-Mart must have decided that there was no way a competitor could own the basic word BACKYARD for grills and grilling accessories.
Tim Sitzmann
View my professional biography
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. Over the years I have made skateboarding movies, played bass and guitar in bands, acted in plays, written and performed sketch comedy, and even acted in an independent (i.e. very low-budget) zombie movie. Unfortunately none of these ever blossomed into a career. I guess it was the classic case of being ahead of your time.
Thankfully these hobbies put me on a path to my current career as an intellectual property attorney. In fact, my first legal venture was obtaining copyrights for my band's debut (and only) album. I had considered law school as an option but I hadn't committed by the time I finished my undergraduate studies. To buy time I signed up for a student work visa and moved to London. Thanks to destiny, dumb luck, or both, I found a position in a law firm specializing in trademark law and brand management. It was my first exposure to the practice of law, and I quickly discovered that I had found my future career.
When I'm not in the office, I spend my time playing my guitar, obsessing over baseball (go Twins!), or talking up a band, movie, or television show that has recently impressed me.
Game-maker Sues Lucasfilm over Han Solo Movie
You may have heard of a little movie called Star Wars. If you haven’t, well, I’ve got some movies for you to borrow. The film was released in 1977, and soon spawned a trilogy of movies that are among the most popular film franchises in the world. Fast forward forty years and eight of the…
Warby’s Fast Food: Can Arby’s Take a Joke?
Maybe you’ve heard of Warby Parker. The eye wear company has become quite successful in a previously monolithic industry. But a tongue-in-cheek advertising effort for a new onion ring monacle might just cross the line into provoking a trademark feud. See, Exhibit 1, below:
And, for the main course:
Even if Warby’s doesn’t actually…
USPTO Adds New Tool to Fight Fraud
Yesterday the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced a new pilot program to help fight fraudulent trademark applications. Specifically, the new program addresses situations where the applicant provided the USPTO with a fraudulent specimen to demonstrate use of the trademark.
Only a narrow subset of fraudulent applications would be vulnerable to a claim under this…
The Sweet Smell of Registration
Last year we took a whiff of Hasbro’s application to register the smell of its Play-Doh® for “toy modeling compounds.” We didn’t think the application was ripe for a functionality refusal, but a refusal on the ground of a lack of acquired distinctiveness seemed like a certainty.
An Office Action issued on May 26th…
Hands Off Jay-Z’s Hand Gesture Trademark
Words and pictures are so 2017. This year, it is all about the non-traditional trademarks (i.e., something other than brand names and images). In the past, we’ve covered a variety of these types of trademarks, from colors to product shapes, to sounds and even the touch of a product. Even looking only at college…
The Elvis Presley Estate Loses Bid to Block ELVIS JUICE Beer
Trademark disputes involving breweries are nothing new, with breweries battling each other, wineries, and even cities over trademarks. We can now add estates of dead celebrities to the mix, as the Estate of Elvis Presley continues its battle against UK-based BrewDog over its ELVIS JUICE I.P.A.
The Elvis Estate first attempted to resolve…
Oliver Babish: Fictional Lawyer, Accurate Advice
Trademark Enforcement in the Social Media Age
Attorneys in general, and trademark attorneys in particular, have a reputation for heavy handedness. The traditional weapon of choice for these legal pugilist has been, and continues to be, ye olde cease and desist letter. A long, unnecessarily wordy letter sprinkled with “without authorization”‘s and “reserves all rights and remedies”‘s and other thinly veiled and…
Beer Brand Battles: David Takes on City Hall (with Goliath on the sidelines)
The City of Portland is known as a hub for craft beer, and its local government couldn’t be prouder. The Travel Portland website proudly proclaims that Portland is “home to more breweries than any other city on earth.” Yet the city’s relationship with the local craft beer scene is not so bubbly at the moment,…