Hitler on copyright
The “Downfall parodies” aren’t really parodies, in the legal sense. But as this one demonstrates, “Hitler” does seem to understand something about copyright, law, IP... Read more
Tag: Brand Management and Branding
Locking it down
Every lawyer who practices in the intellectual property area is asked frequently how to go about protecting a unique or creative idea that someone fears... Read more
Trademark rights in interdigitization
Nick Daly drops me a note to the effect that one Jay-Z, gazillionaire rhyming scatologist, has been sued by a professional perspirer and leaping stage... Read more
Trademarks, copyright, brand equity, and rent-seeking: Soapbox 2010
From last week’s INTA Trademark Topics email discussion list. One name has been changed to protect the innocent, and the links, by way of annotation,... Read more
On the wrong track, as usual
Jews for Jesus, the sleazy, misleading missionaries who crawl over Manhattan each summer, had to back off from their use of the MTA’s world-famous symbols.... Read more
Those who are not with us today
CNN has a nice piece on “Brands We Loved and Lost in 2009.” Okay, we didn’t really “love” Home Depot’s Expo design centers and we... Read more
Big Green’s Ethiopian trademark problem
The Australian reports that earlier news about a resolution of Starbucks’ trademark problems with the Ethiopian coffee thing was perhaps over-caffeinated. UPDATE: Have things perked... Read more
Kissing trademark rights goodbye?
Eric Johnson‘s Pixelization blog has a sweet insight into a sticky trademark mess that Hershey’s could be, theoretically, getting itself into: It’s a Hershey’s-brand three-compartment... Read more
Likelihood of arrogation
Out of the bottle Originally uploaded by Ron Coleman The ad man or woman who wrote this ad for Solgar focused on the market-encroaching challenger... Read more
Through WINDOWS®, darkly
Mr. Thorne, legal marketing wordsmith extraordinaire, wonders: Why would a court opinion use the magic ® symbol to refer to one registered trademark and not... Read more
Cover banned?
Now this is an interesting twist on IP rights and wrongs. It’s interesting, though, more as a sign of the desperation of the dead-tree media... Read more
Revival of the dead
Just this morning a client told me about this company, River West Brands, that finds ways to obtain some semblance of the “rights” in abandoned... Read more
How generic is your cupcakery? Or is it CUPCAKERY™ after all?
From Ryan Gile: Is CUPCAKERY a generic term for a cupcake bakery? At first, the word “cupcakery” seems somewhat suggestive–a unique play on the words... Read more
The Sound of silence
Michael Atkins is beside himself with intellectual-property-enforcement frustration about the use of an image of the Seattle Space Needle — a tall pointy building what... Read more