What a difference two days and three different Judges make. After the pro-plaintiff Paccar decision, the Sixth Circuit has handed down a very pro-defendant decision in Taubman v. Webfeats. Defendant’s website, which linked to plaintiff’s official website, was held not to infringe, thanks to (1) a very narow definition of commercial use; and
2003
QUIBLA COLA Directed at MECCA COLA Market
Mecca Cola, the French soda positioned as a pro-Palestinian alternative to Coke, is selling well according to published reports. Its success appears to have attracted competition. This article discusses a UK soda named QUIBLA COLA (the direction in which Muslims turn to pray to face the Ka’abah in Mecca). As depicted, QUIBLA COLA’s packaging is…
Traffic, Weather and Sports
In traffic news, thanks to inquiries regarding MECCA COLA, traffic for the Trademark Blog in January was up 27% over December. Additionally, over 4000 metasearchs have been conducted.
In weather, it is below freezing again in Westchester. Good thing Mark from Richard Bell Plumbing did a fine job yesterday fixing the radiant heat system,…
I Can Still Do Trademark Clearance, Filing, Transactions and Contentious Matters
NYLawyer.com article on the fact that there are fewer domain name disputes these days.
6th Circuit Case re: PETERBILT and KENTWORTH
Paccar v. Telescan, No. 00-2183 (6th Cir. Feb. 5, 2003) (Injunction against defendant’s use of PETERBILT and KENTWORTH trademarks affirmed in part, vacated in part).
This is a very pro-plaintiff infringement case involving the domain names peterbilttrucks.com, and kentworthtrucks.com and two other variants, registered to a company which provides communication services to truckers. There …
A Branding Company on Network Solutions
Accordingly to this branding company’s diatribe against brands with the word SOLUTIONS, I should not re-name my law firm TRADEMARK, COPYRIGHT and DOMAIN NAME SOLUTIONS, regardless how accurate.
Look For The WI-FI Label
A worried consumer writes Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal:
Q: I have just installed a cable modem and Linksys Wireless Network (802.11b) in my home. Did I make a mistake by not going with a “Wi-Fi” network? I’m now worried I won’t be able to hook up to Wi-Fi networks when I’m traveling …
Reading Other People's Mail – MediaNews v. MediaNews
Here are links to correspondence between the owners of the mark MEDIANEWS GROUP protesting the use of MEDIANEWS for a column about, I’m going to guess, media news. Poynter caved and renamed the column after its author.
Hong Kong Online Trademark Search
Davina Lee at Bird & Bird in Hong Kong writes to advise that Intellectual Property Department has made available online trademark search of the Hong Kong registry. Right now you can search by mark, soon you will be able to search by regsitrant as well. I used PIKACHU as a test and it displays…
Brand As Navigator and Fuzzy Searching and Common Name Resolution
Last week Ben Edelman released his report on typo-squatting (for example the registration of geapliances.com in order, imho, to divert traffic intended for geappliances.com, to a porno site).
Today’s ICANNWatch and Friday’s Copyfight linked to a paper from Seth Finkelstein, describing a program for “fuzzy-searching” of domain names, somewhat remiscent of Google’s “Did you mean…