Last Friday was a big day for Erik Brunetti. He won his appeal at the CAFC, opening the door to federal trademark registration of his four-letter-word “fuct” clothing and fashion brand name.
The same door swung wide open for all other vulgar, scandalous, and immoral designations used as trademarks,
–Dan Kelly, Attorney
Certain late-baby boomers and gen X’rs will know that 3 is “The Magic Number.” Don’t believe me? See here.
I raise this cultural referent principally because I once stumbled upon, quite by accident and for reasons that I cannot now recall, the following items in the U.S. Trademark database:
I was starting to wonder if I was on to something, like the blue oval phenomenon, thinking that there might be some Asian cultural affinity to the number three, but I was hard pressed to find other well-known (in the U.S.) brands from Asian companies that also had ties to the number three. Alas, another great theory down the drain. But I did find some telling design trademarks for these companies, some of them admittedly old:
And, of course, astute readers will know that Samsung’s current logo is…Continue Reading The Magic Number
–Dan Kelly, Attorney
I recently had another experience of coming across a branding trend that, while perhaps old in the creative world, hit me squarely through close-in-time repetitive encounters with the phenomenon, starting with these three marks:
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Not to get too complex, but the “My 29” station carries broadcasts of nearly all home and away
What do you think, is Overstock.com selling bling with the Fordless blue oval logo?
As you may recall from my post back in September, Ford Motor Company is attempting to register the below shown non-verbal logo as a trademark for a variety of goods in Int’l Class 12:
And, as you may recall from Dan’s I See Blue Ovals post back in August, there are far more than a handful of blue oval logos out there besides this one:
The pending Fordless blue oval intent-to-use trademark application recently was examined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), and on October 23, 2009, the PTO found no substantive bases for refusal, but instead it issued an initial refusal noting only a couple of purely procedural or technical deficiencies, concerning the wording in the lengthy description of goods and the need for Ford to submit a claim of ownership to some related registrations (here, here, and here).Continue Reading More On The Fordless Blue Oval
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
What does this image signify to you?
For full credit, please answer the question before peeking back at Dan’s popular post called “I See Blue Ovals.”Continue Reading Blue Oval, But Look Mom, No Words!
–Dan Kelly, Attorney
I think Steve once remarked something to the effect that the Internet is employment security for trademark attorneys. Road tripping is too. On one such recent occasion, my wife remarked on the similarity of Culver’s blue oval signage to Ford’s famous blue oval.
Obviously, there is no issue here from a trademark
