ultimate fighting octagon.jpg
WSJ Law Blog: “Octagon: The Trademark of Ultimate fighting Championship.”
“. . . Another mixed martial arts promoter has infringed upon UFC’s trademark of the octagon — the same eight-sided shape that tells drivers to STOP on the road — according to a ruling late last month by a federal judge in California. That’s right: UFC’s owner received a trademark on the octagon-shaped fighting mat back in 1998, and the court ruled UFC established common law rights on the eight-sided fence as well.

The good people at Thomson CompuMark have made available a podcast and the Powerpoint slides of my presentation “Internet Law: Online Branding Issues“.
Perhaps you would like an interactive TRADEMARK BLOG LIVE presentation, customized for your organization. I have presented to bar associations, trade groups, law firms and private firms on:
U.S. Trademark Law
International Trademark Law
Online Branding Issues (including domain names and search engines)
Blogging Legal Issues
Contact me at marty at schwimmerlegal dot com for details.

The Trademark Office rewards use of a check-off list for identifying goods and services as opposed to free-text entry, by providing a $50 per class discount. However many new and specific goods and services aren’t in the PTO’s ID Manual of goods and services. Carl Oppedahl points out that you may suggest the inclusion of an identification by emailing TMIDSUGGEST [at symbol] USPTO dot GOV.

WSJ.com: Facebook Pulls Audio Service From Web Site
“Social-networking start-up Facebook Inc. says it pulled a service called Facebook Audio from its Web site because the service violated copyright rules. Facebook Audio allowed Facebook users to play full-length songs within its pages. . . . The RIAA had written July 9 to Facebook Audio, asking it to remove pages on Facebook that contained links to outside Web sites that had posted infringing material.”