Tostitos

There once was a day when being an "artisan" meant something: "A person or company that makes a high-quality, distinctive product in small quantities, usually by hand using traditional methods: artisan foods."

The key elements of an artisan’s handiwork seem to be hand-crafted, distinctive products of high-quality that are produced in small numbers. Perhaps bread from the local bakery, craft beer from the corner brewpub, unique cheese from a small dairy farm, and for the less edible, one-of-a-kind jewelry items, custom furniture pieces, and hand-painted household knickknacks.

But, nowadays, even a "major online service provider" in the field of intellectual property filings appears interested in suggesting or emulating the qualities of an artisan’s handiwork: Artisan IP.

Meanwhile, back to our discussion of "artisan" foods, I’m thinking it’s safe to say that when Domino’s Pizza adopts the term for its latest fast food pizza delivery offering, when Starbucks employs the term in naming its breakfast sandwich offering, and when Frito-Lay chooses Artisan Recipes as a trademark for its latest pre-packaged tortilla chip offering, true artisans must be in desperate search of a new title to reclaim their identity: 

 

Foodette Reviews also has noticed the incongruity of mass merchandise national chains adopting the term. I just don’t think it makes one a "snob" to be bothered by the misdescriptive use.

Yet, I suppose "artisan" still means something, we’re just not sure what, at the moment, since it appears to be a moving target, as Nancy Friedman recently noted on her truly artisanal Fritinancy Blog (not to be confused with Artesians, of course).

According to Grub Street New York (hat tip to Nancy on this find), what appears to be certain is that the marketing cachet of the word "artisan" began its rapid demise into "meaninglessness" about a decade ago when the co-opting by "giant companies" began, in order to "hawk fast-food burgers and delivery pizza."

As a trademark type, given the larger-than-life bandwagon of those using the term "artisan" in connection with pizza (WeightWatchers, Wedge, Pitfire, Roundtable, Mario’sMax & Leo’s, Mazzio’s, and Freschetta, among others), I’m left wondering whether Artisan Pizza is the next Brick Oven Pizza — namely, a new category of pizza, rendering the term generic, and free for all to use, assuming of course, the use is not false or misleading to consumers.

Last, but not least, for an excerpt from a 2003 Office Action from the USPTO refusing registration of ARTISAN as a trademark for "frozen pizza," based on deceptive misdescriptiveness, see below the jump.Continue Reading Artisan Puffery?

Mark Image

To sports fans of this university, December has been a big month because their beloved team finished the 2009 regular football season undefeated (13-0) once again, winning yet another post-season BCS bowl game bid. Next month will be even bigger news if their WAC team happens to defeat TCU in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. To trademark types, however, the biggest news of all is what this university was able to accomplish last month at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

You might be surprised to learn (I was) that the above image is the drawing associated with the single color trademark ("the mark consists of the color blue used on the artificial turf in the stadium") that this university was able to federally register in connection with: "Entertainment services, namely, the presentation of intercollegiate sporting events and sports exhibitions rendered in a stadium, and through the media of radio and television broadcasts and the global communications network." Hat tip to Brad Frazer of the Hawley Troxell firm, in Boise, Idaho.

Quick question, how does one render entertainment services in connection with a single-color trademark through the "media of radio broadcasts"? Does oral reference to the blue turf on the radio constitute use of the mark in commerce?

In any event, the identity of the university in question, is revealed below the jump, and it is, of course:Continue Reading Surface Level Branding Runs Deep on This Athletic Field