May 2003

The Trademark Blog started a year ago today.  I sent in my renewal fee to Radio Userland yesterday.  Thanks guys for creating a great program.

In the past year:

-two people wrote me to warn that the Nigerian bank email was a scam;

-one person wrote to inform that contrary to what I had written

At least three companies other than Overture appear to have purchased OVERTURE as a keyword on Google.  No one other than Google  appears to have purchased the keyword GOOGLE on Google.

At least one company other than Google appears to have purchased the keyword GOOGLE on Overture.  At least twelve companies other than Overture appear to have

Interesting fact pattern: New.net provides software that allows a browser to utilize ‘alternate root’ domain names (domain names that end in .video or .shop, for example, top level domains that have not been added to ‘true’ A root).  LavaSoft sells Ad-Aware (which it bills as ‘the morning -after pill for the Internet’) which allows a user to discover

Bret writes to tell us of:  Capp Enterprises v. Disney, CV03-3357 GAF, filed yesterday in Los Angeles, regarding Disney’s use of Capp’s registered SADIE HAWKINS DAY trademark in the upcoming May 17 episode of Disney’s ‘Lizzie McGuire’ show.

In the Al Capp comic strip L’il Abner, Sadie Hawkins (pictured left) was so ugly, her

Plaintiff owns a federal registration for PYCNOGENOL, an anti-oxidant which is derived from French tree bark.  Defendant advertised its product as MASQUELIER’S: THE ORIGINAL FRENCH PYCNOGENOL, and inserted PYCNOGENOL into its meta-tags.  Plaintiff brought infringement and dilution claims.  On appeal, the Ninth Circuit held, under its nominative fair use test (see recent fair use cases