Comments to the PTO on the proposed Rules of Practice for Trademark filings under the Madrid Protocol Implementation Act, from the ABA, AIPLA, INTA and various law firms and individuals, here.
Map of Madrid, copyright 2003 Lonely Planet Publications, all rights reserved, travel guides are available here.
Link via Gawker, from about.com, audio files re how to pronounce designer names.
Title explained here.
Federal Circuit, in the first case considering dilution as a basis for opposing an application. Opposer couldn’t establish that its mark was famous prior to applicant’s use of the mark. Opposition dismissed.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car v. Advantage Rent-a-Car, No. 02-1444 (Fed. Cir. May 20, 2003)
John Baden of Kenyon brought this interesting attorney advertising case to the attention of the INTA list yesterday:
“[A] recent decision (published in BNA PCTJ 66,48(May 9, 2003)), held that “It is misleading and self-laudatory for an Ohio law firm to provide prospective clients or other firms with statistics about the number of intellectual
Unpublished Fourth Circuit decision. Plaintiff registered AUDITRON in stylized form thirty years ago. Record indicated that he hadn’t used that stylized form for 15 years. Defendant registered AUDITRON for hi-fi speakers, and then moved into health practice management software. Defendant registered auditron.com. Plaintiff brings infringement (section 32 but not 43(a) (infringement of an unregistered mark))
Via ICBTollFree: AT&T is suing Sprint, One Call and ASC for what it calls a ‘fat-finger dialing scheme’ whereby they obtained close versions of the toll free number 1 800 CALL ATT.
MCI reportedly owns 1 800 OPERATER (as opposed to ATT’s 1-800-OPERATOR).
ATT reportedly owns 1 800 CALL MCI.
The FCC on fat-finger dialing here.
The terms and conditions for this website are pretty funny.
Via Politech and info-commons.org, a demand letter from the MPAA to the owner of a website named RATEDNC-17.COM, which appears to distribute ‘themes’ or ‘styles’ for Linux. The MPAA Rating System consists of certification marks. The criteria for MPAA’s NC-17 mark is:
. . . IN THE OPINION OF APPLICANT’S RATING OR APPEALS BOARDS,
Fortune Magazine is suing a Chinese radio station over its use of the Fortune name, in China. This via the new China Blawg.
Registrars of generic top level domains must be accredited by ICANN, and the registrar submits to an agreement imposing various obligations.
In May I wrote to ICANN requesting that it review whether a specific registrar was in compliance with its accreditation. I indicated that I had reason to believe that the registrar was systematically refusing to