That sweet John Welch at TTABlog displays his great sense of taste with a delicious discussion of the refusal to register orange flavor as a trademark for a medication, a decision that will no doubt leave the applicant sour, and about which drug manufacturers will probably feel bittersweet.
I’m not aware of a registration
Look For MARTY SCHWIMMER Brand Legal Services
In view of this article reporting that a departing lawyer has failed to bar his former firm from using his name, based in part that the lawyer failed to show that his name has acquired secondary meaning as a trademark, I am motivated to build up as much secondary meaning in my name as possible.
Comments on WEB 2.0 Dust-Up
Comment thread from Don Park’s Daily Habit on WEB 2.0, HT D. Winer.
This Is What I’m Talking About Re WEB 2.0
This illustration for Tim O’Reilly’s article “What Is Web 2.0?” suggests the challenge that CMP created for itself in maintaining WEB 2.0 as a trademark (as opposed to a meme). Forget for the moment whether lawyers are necessary, or whether it was bad PR for CMP to send a demand letter, or if O’Reilly
Web 2.0 v. Web 2.0
Web 2.0 t-shirt here.
Wikipedia on Web 2.0 here.
Blog of IT@Cork, organzation that received demand letter from CMP (parent of O’reilly) re use of WEB 2.0 to describe its IT@Cork Web 2.0 conference, here.
O’Reilly essay: What is Web 2.0
Most recent post from O’Reilly.
Cory Doctorow on the controversy.
EASY.COM Easily Registrable In U.K.
UK Patent Office decision dismissing opposition to EASY.COM in inherent registrability grounds. Decision rests on viewing the mark as a whole and not on a finding of secondary meaning. Notable finding: consumers are trained at this point to view [example].com as a trademark.
LAWYERS.COM Unregistrable As Generic Term
Citable TTAB decision rejecting application for LAWYERS.COM on genericness grounds.
Echoing TTablog, my reaction to the decision was ‘coulda told you that in fewer than 29 pages’ although to be fair to the Board, most of the decision is concerned with shutting down a ploy in drafting applications for [generic].com marks.
Trademarks build
Dave Winer on Wiki
Dave Winer comments on the flap caused by Adam Curry allegedly anonymously altering the contents of the Wiki entry on podcasting. On a different point, I had mentioned earlier this week that trademark owners whose marks were susceptible to genericide would do well to monitor Wiki entries on those marks.
For what it’s worth,
‘Alex Ferguson Is Devoid Of Distinctive Character’
This article from the UK’s Mirror makes an inherent registrability analysis sound like disparagement.