FT.Com article on a trade dispute between the U.S. and the EEC over reciprocal treatment of appellations of origin. The U.S. charges that the EEC does not grant protection to terms such as IDAHO POTATOES equivalent to that granted by the U.S. to terms such as FRENCH COGNAC.
Yahoo has a new enhanced search page which acknowledges the different types of searches users conduct – “full text,” topical index, yellow page, and news. I tested it out with some absolutely unique marks or mark plus descriptors (VEUVE CLICQUOT, ROLEX, SONY CAMCORDER), some generic terms, and some “common names” (DELTA, ROYAL, LLOYDS). I felt that
The Dow Jones wire is reporting that Ty’s (maker of Beanie Babies) petition for cert has been rejected in the BARGAINBEANIES.COM case, so this Seventh Circuit decision on the fair use of a famous trademark in a domain name stands.
I just received an email request from Bangladesh asking if he could have the Bangladesh MECCA COLA rights. Resisting the temptation to ask for an upfront cash payment, I directed him here.
Explanation to those just joining us: because the Google gods love blogs, my site is one of the first non-Arabic sites appearing
The NY Times, which doesn’t want you to link to them, reports that Aeroflot has hired a London branding consultant, Identica, to help it re-brand. The airline labors under the perception that it is the worst airline in the world, a belief perhaps caused by the number of crashes it has (36 in 1991 alone,
Indian cybersquatting case regarding DELHIHIGHCOURT.COM and DELHILOWERCOURT.COM, via Kamudi Online via NameProtect.
What do trademark lawyers charge? There isn’t a lot of hard data but I have anecdotal evidence as to what constitutes “market,” at least in my part of the world. Therefore my jaw dropped when I took over two clients recently and saw their old bills. One NYC trademark boutique (not on anybody’s short list) was charging
Fashion fights SARS in Hong Kong, via Drudge Report (don’t know where Drudge got it). This article reports that (unauthorized) designer masks in HK is a booming business.
Habeas sells an anti-spam solution consisting of a copyrighted and trademarked Haiku. The Haiku must be appended to an email in order to pass through a Habeas spam filter. Thus mis-use of the Haiku, Habeas argues, is copyright and trademark infringement. Habeas has now announced the first batch of copyright and trademark suits against spammers
Strange article via NameProtect regarding a German lawyer hassling Linus Torvalds, owner of the LINUX trademark, in Germany. Misinformation, possible due to bad translation: while German trademark law does contain a 5 year user requirement, a German registration does not expire after 5 years as the article implies (German trademarks have 10 year terms, same