The Gong Show was a quirky and absurdly amusing talent show from the 70s.
It was created, produced, and hosted for a number of years by Chuck Barris.
The gong was beaten by one or more judges when they’d had enough of an act.
In reviewing
Shelter in place has delivered attention to meal delivery, prepared food delivery, contactless delivery, not to mention DIY food products, so this Kraft television commercial led me to explore if there may be a trademark story in this brand:
Upon first seeing the ad for Kraft’s Just Crack an EGG breakfast
Some commands support trademark ownership (Just Do It), and others don’t.
As you know, I’m not a fan of the USPTO’s trend toward informational refusals, especially when the “evidence” more supports a mere descriptiveness refusal.
Having said that, this RENT ME informational command screams incapable:
Rent Me caught my eye,
Let’s all hope that the Supplemental Trademark Register is not on the death watch.
It appears though to be on life support, at times, and especially with the USPTO’s heightened focus on “merely informational” matter, including laudatory messages.
This is a common basis for registration refusal nowadays: “Merely informational matter fails to function as a
We’ve been down this road before, some themes intersect, and trademark value is filtered out:
The intersecting themes on tap for the day are: Zero, Branding, Trademarks, and Loss of Rights.
ZEROWATER is a perfectly suggestive, inherently distinctive, and federally-registered trademark with “incontestable” status as a source-identifier for “water filtering units
As you know, I enjoy telling trademark stories about soaps encountered on my various trips:
Lather® (brand) soap recently caught my eye — and the lens of my iPhone — while in Palo Alto.
Interestingly, the USPTO has treated the word as inherently distinctive, in Lather’s registrations.
In other words, not merely descriptive,
In April, news broke that two iconic alcohol brands were joining forces to create a remarkable new beer: Jim Beam Budweiser Copper Lager. Fruit of the joint labor is now available for consumption:
The unique combination doesn’t appear destined to fall flat, as in the early days since launch, it seems to be
We’ve had a lot of nothing — meaning zero, and the trademark meaning, if any, of zero — on our mind lately, so imagine my surprise to see this soap “brand” for the first time last week in a hotel:
Not sure how to pronounce it, but as we know, there really
As I’ve been known to do long before now, this past weekend I found myself gazing intently, this time, into the front label and back copy on this S. Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water bottle:
Putting aside the question of the shiny red star logo, which we already have bloviated about, here,
While many other places in the country are enjoying signs of spring, here in the Twin Cities, we’re hanging on to the white stuff, for a while longer; we shoveled 22 inches worth this past weekend!
There’s something about our long winter here that makes fresh fruit in the grocery store all the more appealing,