–Dan Kelly, Attorney
This reminder is a bit late for new Christmas-season consumer products, but it bears repeating year round, as companies contemplate new products: buy domain names associated with a new product before announcing the new product. This seems like an obvious thing to do, but I regularly read stories where companies fail to
If you’ve been paying attention to the trademark front, you’ve probably heard that Oprah and Mutual of Omaha recently settled a small skirmish over the use of "aha moment." The skirmish was apparently ignited by Mutual of Omaha’s attempt to register "Official Sponsor of the Aha Moment." According to Oprah, she made the phrase
— Karen Brennan, Attorney
While browsing through a toy store recently, I noticed what appears to be a trend in branding this holiday season – reintroducing classic or “nostalgic” toys. It is very hard for me to accept that the toys I played with as a child could be considered “nostalgic,” but upon
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the requested appeal of Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc., the nearly two-decade old trademark case seeking cancellation of the U.S. Trademark Registrations owned by the NFL franchise in the Nation’s Capitol. In doing so, the highest Court in the land, has permitted the laches ruling to stand. Basically, permitting dismissal of the action given
A couple of months ago I saw in a convenience store a large Snickers point-of-sale floor-display depicting a prominent and attention-getting cross-section of a Snickers candy bar. Given Mars’ apparent interest in owning and creating non-traditional trademark rights surrounding the Snickers brand (revisit Dan’s post from earlier this year), it made me wonder whether Mars might
–Dan Kelly, Attorney
As we hit the ides of November, we are nearing the proverbial calm before the storm of the holidays. What you probably do not know is that we are but two, short days away from a little-known holiday before the Holidays, one that celebrates the preparation for the Holidays. This, of
–Sharon Armstrong, Attorney
[Spoiler alert – this post is about the season finale of Mad Men. If you haven’t watched it, please skip this post (never fear, you can revisit it in the archives once you’ve watched the episode)].
In the season finale of Mad Men, the best show on television, the executives of
I must admit, I was quite intrigued by Dan Kelly’s Duets blog entry “I See Blue Ovals” (August 28, 2009). It got me thinking about some of the trends occurring in logo design today. My 20+ years in the world of branding has witnessed a few notable changes. Perhaps the most significant is the application of
As you may recall, last month, we had some fun trying to solve the mystery of a non-traditional and non-verbal trademark owned by Amazon.com, here.
This time the non-traditional and non-verbal mystery mark shown above is described in trademark filings as consisting of "four circles that increase in size from left to right." I call it an "increasingly intense ellipsis." What would you call it, if you had to give it a name?
More importantly, have you seen it before? Do you recognize it? Are you surprised to know it is registered and protected as a trademark? Do you know what goods and services are associated with it? Do you know who owns it?
OK, need more information?
You don’t need the products bearing this "increasingly intense ellipsis" mark or the services associated with it to shop online at Amazon.com or any other online retailer. Did that help?
No? Here’s another hint: It is used in close association with this service mark: Tap & Go.
Still not enough? Alright, enough suspense?
The visual answer and more discussion is below the jump.Continue Reading An Increasingly Intense Ellipsis? dot, doT, dOT, DOT!
A couple of hours ago Kare 11 News in Minneapolis reported "Lions Tap wins settlement with McDonalds."
Absolutely no details about the settlement were provided, so it’s hard to understand how Kare 11 is able to pronounce this as a "win" for Lion’s Tap over McDonalds, although it certainly plays into the seductive David and Goliath