On the one hand, a trademark owner has a duty to exercise quality control over a licensed product manufactured by a third party.  On the other hand, some courts will apportion product liability to the trademark owner relative to its role in the manufacture, design and distribution of the licensed product (which could encourage the…

From Google’s SEC Filing:

We also face risks associated with our trademarks. For example, there is a risk that the word “Google” could become so commonly used that it becomes synonymous with the word “search.” If this happens, we could lose protection for this trademark, which could result in other people using

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Tiffany sues eBay.  At issue is: who should bear the burden of policing marks on eBay?  The Reuters article claims that at one point, 73% of all jewelry marked as TIFFANY on eBay was counterfeit.

Via KillerMookie via Flynnberg, a very funny parody of The Matrix.

Political rival charges Congressman DeLay of accepting $20,000 from Bacardi in exchange for influencing legilsation that aided Bacardi in its trademark fight regarding the HAVANA CLUB mark.  Via Houston Chronicle.

A previous instance of allegations that Bacardi contributed to politicians (in that case, $50,000 to Jeb Bush) to affect trademark matters, here.

Ray Bradbury, author of FARENHEIT 451, protests Michael Moore’s use of FARENHEIT 9/11, via cnn.com.

NY Times article on particulars of how Google GMail will work.  Of special interest re: trademarks:

Interestingly, Google has decided to allow e-mail messages sent by businesses promoting their services to contain ads from competing companies.

Last week, an e-mail message sent by Citibank to one customer, for example, arrived on Gmail with ads from

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Manchester United is the most valuable soccer brand.  Real MAdrid was second. Via ESPN.