A belated thanks to Candice Kim and Professor Leah Chan Grinvald for sharing their insights and perspectives in our recent webinar on trademark bullying.

One topic we discussed is Backcountry.com’s recent back-down to backlash over its trademark enforcement activities concerning the Backcountry mark.

The example is a harsh reminder to trademark counsel of the

One of my friends, when playing blackjack and asked to “cut the deck” after it has been shuffled, consistently admonishes without hesitation: “Thin to win.”

Given the trademark story for today, you may end up believing the opposite.

A 6-year trademark fight between Frito-Lay and Real Foods ended this month.

Frito-Lay opposed Real Foods’

‘Tis the season for gratitude and thankfulness, and avoiding conflict and fruitcake.

From a trademark perspective, every season is for avoiding genericness, right?

After all, generic designations are part of the public domain, they aren’t own-able.

So, why is Guaranteed Rate continuing to invest in Rate.com, found to be generic

When thinking about brands comprising religious matter, I think of EZEKIEL 4:9.

The EZEKIEL 4:9 brand has been registered as a trademark for bread since 1990.

The brand owner had to clear some chaff from the Principal Register to do so, threshing this EZEKIEL as abandoned, and gaining this EZEKIEL by assignment.

It presently

Now that we’re back in the blogging business, I’m anxious to be able to harvest some visual trademark stories captured on my iPhone over the past 7 months:

Are you surprised to see the federal registration symbol marking World’s Softest?

After all, the phrase seems to communicate important information about the socks in question, as

It’s been a while . . . about seven months now.

As you’ll see, a few things have happened since April, when we last left you with these gems on the topic of trademark bullying: Stop Bullying the Entrepreneurs, What does Entrepreneur Mean, Anyway?, and Public Shaming is Not the Solution to Trademark

Let’s be very clear, today is April Fools’ Day, but this is not an April Fools’ Joke.

It’s not every day Seth Godin volunteers a guest post, but Thursday was that day.

Friday we published Stop Bullying the Entrepreneurs, 33 comments and counting.

This isn’t the first time Seth has spoken out against trademark

Seth Godin

It’s not good marketing and I’m pretty sure it’s not good law, either.

It seems as though Entrepreneur magazine (who should know better) is working with Latham and Watkins (who should certainly know better) to persist in their relentless efforts to bully entrepreneurs to stop using the word ‘entrepreneur’.

And yes, it’s