Politechbot via ICANNwatch on the case of William Purdy and what looks to be another domain name as free speech case. An anti-abortion advocate is apparently registering what are described as names similar or identical to the names of newspapers. The registrant re-directs traffic to anti-abortion sites.
I disagree with the author’s final sentence, that…
This from the Washington Post about two groups fighting over the name Minority Business RoundTable. Trademark disputes are not limited to for-profit enterprises.
From cnn.com via slashdot.org re: paid search engines’ tardiness in complying with the FTC order in revealing how payment affects search placement.
Quick injunction received against Gator, pop-up ad specialist, by major media companies, according to ZDNet wire.
Nothing to do with trademarks but interesting. A Florida teenager was convicted of the 1999 murder of a young girl. It was widely reported that death was caused by the boy imitating wrestling moves, and the case was widely referred to as the wrestling death case. The Parents Television Council made the wrestling death case a feature…
FUBU (its founders using the acronym of “For US, By Us”), sells clothing under the 05 mark, where the 05 is depicted as a numeral on a sports jersey. It turns out that pro athletes (Gretzky being the exception) don’t use numbers starting with a 0, so FUBU was able to build some distinctiveness in the number. A…
Thursday’s Wall Street Journal has an article on “spoofed songs” on file-sharing services such as Morpheus or Kazaa. The article suggests that the record companies are now uploading defective versions of their own songs (3 minutes of static for example), so as to frustrate users from utilizing the free services. The “major record labels neither…
Janis Ian on how she makes more money because of downloading, via Slashdot.org.
The inaugural copy of The Trademark Insider is available for download from NameProtect. The issue contains the 2001 annual rankings of U.S. trademark firms (Oblon Spivak led with 2,361 applications filed, the firm where I had been a partner, Fross Zelnick, fell to second with 1,289). First quarter numbers for 2002 are provided as well…
Apparently women walk around naked at the Burning Man Festival, held annually in the Nevada desert. Someone filmed some naked women there in order to sell a video. Now the organizers of the festival are suing the video’s producers under, among other theories, invasion of privacy. It’s interesting that someone can walk around naked…