The European Court of Justice ruled last week that cigarettes cannot be marketed with the terms MILD or LIGHT. Japan Tobacco’s MILD SEVEN brand has a problem. The ECJ decision seems to say “You can always pick another trademark.”
2002
King of Beers vs. Beer of Kings
For those of you scoring at home, the Czech Budvar had a split decision in Hungary – it can use BUDWEISER but not BUD.
ICANN on New gTLDs
ICANN President Stuart Lynn’s interesting replies to comments on his proposal for new GTLDs.
Lex Loci Delicti
The law of the place of the tort. The allegedly libelous publication by Dow Jones was in Victoria, Australia. The damage to reputation was in Victoria. The law of the tort is the law of Victoria. The text of the High Court of Australia decision is here.
8th Circuit Case on Third Party Standing To Enforce a Consent Agreement
A fraternity was involved in litigation in 1969 regarding use of its various indicia, and resolved the matter signing a consent agreement which bars it from asserting rights against, inter alia, “any jewelry or insignia goods manufacturer.” Now the frat has a trademark dispute with a manufactuer, who was not involved in the 1969 dispute,…
Barney Google It!
Google has apparently lost in the court of first instance in Norway regarding use of the domain name Google.no (.no being the Norwegian country code). Via Greplaw.
Google should probably consider buying out the rights to Barney Google.
Branding For the Small Business
Low-cost branding strategies for the small business via Brandchannel. One person’s definition of branding:
“Branding is simply an integrated strategy of individual marketing techniques you can use to communicate to a targeted market about what your product or service can do for them. It’s an umbrella strategy that helps guide the rest of your
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Shameless Self-Promotion
The Trademark Blog has cracked the all-time top 100 list of Userland blogs. In the future, everyone will be famous to 15 people.
A Hero Ain't Nothing But A Sandwich
This article describes a Pennsylvania business which believes it has some form of protectable trademark rights in the term HOAGIE for sandwich, which, we are told, was originally the HOGGIE, invented on Hog Island. No origin tale is provided for the SUBMARINE or HERO or GRINDER. Via NameProtect.com.
p.s. If you are ever contemplating obtaining…
Electronic Filing of TTAB Documents
PTO Press Release here re electronic filing of TTAB documents