February 2005

Softbelly plush bean bag dolls have chamois surfaces used to clean computer screens.  At one point they were named SCREENIE BEANIES.  Owners of the BEANIE BABY mark, Ty, sued, and prevailed.  Ty has now been ordered to forfeit its $700k judgement for tampering with an expert witness who was allegedly prepared to testify that BEANIE had become

A letter has been circulated to non-U.S. trademark owners by a U.S. law firm indicating that if they were to extend an International Application to the U.S. under the Madrid Protocol, were the U.S. Trademark Office to rule that some or all of the goods/services are mis-classified under U.S. practice, those goods/services, rather than being re-classified (as would