House of Lords affirmed WWF victory. Now the newly-renamed WWE is tempting fate by running bus ads featuring the McManos (with Sopranos imagery).
June 2002
I Want To Shoo-oo-oot the Whole Day Down
I Would Use The Internet To Express Myself But I Couldn't Get The Right Domain Name
Other Icann-watchers are targeting Esther Dyson’s column in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal for various quotes such as “ICANN is weak and powerless” (this from ICANN’s first chairman). I’m puzzled by this one: “ICANN can control not so much freedom of speech as freedom of presence of the Internet.”
I don’t know what Ms. Dyson is…
More Rights in GIVENCHY than GIVENCHY itself?
Strange blurb in the National Law Journal. Givenchy (a sub of LVMH) owns US registrations for GIVENCHY for perfumes and watches. Time Products alleges it has the rights to import and distribute GIVENCHY waches in the US (presumably from Givenchy’s European watch manufacturer). Givenchy distributed watches in the US as a giveaway with a purchase of…
Another Net Jurisdiction Case, This From the DC Court of Appeals
The latest case on jurisdiction in cyberspace. Not really a close case as to personal jurisdiction. Defendant had applied for a securities license in the forum.
Arsenal defeats merchant in Prelim Match, Now on to ECJ Cup
The use of sports teams’ logos on merchandise is another perceived David v. Goliath trademark issue, pitting the greedy team owners against the small businessman who merely wants to provide the fan with the opportunity to express his/her allegiance to his/her favorite team, with logo merchandise at popular prices.
Arsenal, not quite in…
Matt Damon as the Domain Administrator, Christopher Lee as ICANN
I have been leaving the reporting of the drama over the re-delegation of the .za TLD (South Africa’s country-code) to Bret Fausett’s ICANN Blog. However I couldn’t resist mentioning this story that, to prevent a government take-over, the former administrator has hidden the “key” to the domain abroad. This is shaping up to be…
If The Lakers Win Next Year, Let's Just Call It Four-in-a-Row
This is the kind of story that gets anti-IP folk riled up about those who “highjack” common terms, but remember, Pat Riley can only enforce the trademark THREEPEAT against people who use it as a trademark, not people like you and me who use THREEPEAT all the time to describe situations where we have won…
No Biz Like Paint Biz
This STOP decision transferring paint.biz to complainant is another argument for appellate review of UDRPs and other domain name resolution proceedings. Complainant’s ITU trademark application for PAINT.BIZ was filed after the November ’00 announcement of the .biz TLD was announced. It apparently does use PAINT.BIZ as a trademark on the real world. We don’t know…
Brand As Navigator
The brand owner’s dream is that if your brand is ACME, then the consumer can find you at ACME.COM. In otherwords, the brand is the navigator. In practice, the “dot com assumption” works effectively for only a small number of the world’s brands, but it raises the hopes of any business.
How can navigational systems help…