2006

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Europe By Net takes orders for designer furniture through its catalog and website, apparently fulfills these orders by buying at retail in Europe, and ships them to the customer. It still, reportedly, can beat U.S. retail prices for those items. Europe By Nets’ website claims that some of its prices are 20 to 30% below…

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a profile on Old Navy, page B1, entitled “Silk and Leather At Old Navy?” In noting Old Navy’s attempts to raise some of its price points, the article stated that:
“. . . Old Navy designers looked at jeans from high-end brands liken Seven for All Mankind and Citizens for…

WSJ (no free online version): “What happens when an eBay steal is a fake”(“The counterfeit market has become a major headache for the luxury-product industry — and for unwary consumers. Our reporter finds out what recourse people have when they buy fake goods through an online auction.”)
Four out of the five designer items the…

WSJ (no free online version available): The estate of Samuel Beckett does not allow any departure, not only from the text of his plays but from the extensive specific stage directions left by Beckett. It recently sought to enjoin an Italian production of ‘Waiting For Godot’ that cast women in the roles of Vladimir and…

Pacific Epoch: Yahoo lost an appeal to obtain the names YAHU.COM and YAHU.COM.CN in China. The article states that the current registrant’s name has the same pinyin, or phonetic rendering in roman characters, but uses different Chinese characters.

“‘Hooters’ Loses Its Appeal” re 11th Circuit affirmance of a lower court decision dismissing Hooters’ claim that a rival establishment infringed whatever rights it may have in the ‘Hooters Girl.’ Follow the links for interesting discussion regarding the extent to which an employee’s unifom can function as trade dress (pun intended).

NameProtect’s Trademark Insider for the 1st quarter ’06 is out. Highlights include:
-70,860 U.S. trademark applications were filed, up 10% over the comparable period in ’05.
-Greenberg Taurig filed the most applications among law firms (542).
-Mattel filed the most applications among companies (230).
It’s interesting how fragmented this field is. The largest player has…

. . . unless you’re eBay. Incidental to doing a search, I noticed that there were a gazillion dead and soon to be dead trademark applications for businesses providing ancilliary services to eBay sellers (e.g. WE WILL SELL YOUR STUFF ON EBAY FOR YOU or JOE’S EBAY DROP SHOP). These applicants could possibly use these…