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SIDAMO and HARAR are coffee growing regions in Ethiopia. It appears that those terms are widely used to refer to the beans grown in those regions. The Government of Ethiopia filed U.S. trademark applications for those terms. As far as I can discern from the PTO website, these are registrations for ‘regular’ registrations on the principal register and not for certification marks.
The applications have met descriptiveness objections (as the examiner turned up ample evidence of the terms being used not as trademarks but as descriptive terms). Additionally, Letters of Protest have been accepted by the PTO and communicated to the examiner, providing evidence that the terms are generic. As a procedural aside, a Letter of Protest is not an inter partes proceeding. It is an ex parte communication from a third party that is examined by the PTO before the information in it is provided to the Examining Attorney. I had trouble opening these massive (600+ pages) PDF documents on the PTO site, but they appear to contain evidentiary material about generic use of these terms.
Oxfam has now criticized Starbucks, alleging that Starbucks influenced a coffee trade association to obstruct the applications, and that the loss of these trademarks will cost poor Ethiopian farmers tens of millions of dollars. Some articles claim that Starbucks or the trade association has opposed the applications, which is not correct. I assume that it was the trade association that filed the Letters of Protest.
Starbucks has responded to Oxfam’s allegations.

One thing that is not clear to me from the printed reports is why these applications are for conventional trademarks and not for certification marks.
I think we would need to understand the economics of the SIDAMO and HARAR bean markets to appreciate precisely what is going on. The proposition that opposing trademark protection hurts the Ethiopian farmers would be supported by two different arguments. The first is that the existence of the trademarks (any type of trademarks) for these names, would benefit the farmers because it would allow the trademark owner to police against beans grown outside of Ethiopia from using those names.
The second argument is a two-edged sword. Anyone who owns these marks will be able to cartelize the growers, for better or worse. If the names are owned as trademarks by the Ethiopian government, or, if the names became certification marks where the certifying procedure was controlled by the Ethiopian government, then the government would be able to control which growers in those regions could use the terms. The Ethiopian government might be able to prevent certain growers from using the terms, even if they grow beans in those regions.
Ownership of geographical terms as conventional trademarks have resulted in attempts to prohibit truthful (but competitive) use of the term as a geographic indicator, so the fear that growers within the regions may not be allowed to use the terms, would not be unfounded (see disputes relating to CHIHUAHUA cheese and TILLAMOOK cheese).
Here is the US PTO’s discussion of geographical indicators and certification marks.

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The not always responsive answers to our question: ‘is there such a thing as an authorized tribute band (other than Beatlemania)?’ pour in.
Larry S. advises us of rasta metal band Dread Zeppelin, and points out that Robert Plant, at least, speaks favorably of them.
Eva R. advises us of a CTM registration for ABBA MANIA, which doesn’t appear to be owned by Abba.
Peter I. advises us of the PINK FLOYD EXPERIENCE, which is produced by a company also responsible for BJORN AGAIN, another Abba tribute. However we can’t find any indication that it is authorized by Pink Floyd.
Special Free Offer of Legal Advice: If you are a tribute band that will perform the music of XYZ, and you want to name yourself the XYZ Anything, without the authorization of the owner of the XYZ name, I will advise against it.

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Well there was a big chunk of afternoon.
I picked up the flyer pictured above, at lunch. I have never been to see a tribute band. Glenn has been to see Dark Star Orchestra and Dire Wolf.
We’ll ignore the copyright issue in the flyer other than to say ‘it’s better not to reproduce copyrighted artwork.’
The trademark issue is interesting. The use of a hit song title (or famous lyric) as the name of a tribute band, doesn’t really suggest endorsement by the original artists – in fact the argument can be made that such use is exactly interpreted by the public to suggest a tribute band. In an odd way, a name such as TRAMPS LIKE US is a suggestive mark, as it suggests a quality of the service (namely that the band plays Springsteen songs).
As to the big use of the name SPRINGSTEEN, it certainly might get someone to pick up the flyer, but would someone think that Springsteen is appearing at a bar in White Plains (did I ever tell you that I saw Springsteen at a party, once?). Would they think that this was an ‘authorized’ tribute band?
That led to a spirited conversation within the office as to whether in the history of the world, there has ever been a licensed tribute band (see post below), and if there has never been, could anyone ever go to see a tribute band in the mistaken belief that the band was endorsed by the original artist, given that no such band had ever existed.
It was also wondered whether there has ever been an authorized Elvis Impersonator and how close you can come to Elvis’ look without rights of publicity kicking in (did I ever tell you I saw Robert Gordon do ‘Blue Christmas’ at the Lone Star in 1983?).
Which led to a spirited discussion as to whether a band, dismayed by the low quality of its tribute bands, would ever want to send out a ‘touring company’ of itself.
While led to the observation that touring companies of plays need to be authorized because there is no such thing as a compulsory license for the book of the play, however could you do a ‘tribute’ version of a musical without its book or choreography?
Which led to a remembrance of Robert Stigwood Group v. Sperber, 457 F.2d 50 (2d Cir 1972), which held that an unauthorized performance of songs from ‘ Jesus Christ Superstar’ could be prohibited if the performance ‘evoked’ the dramatic work, by playing more than a few songs in the original sequence, and if the artists performed in the ‘roles’ of the original work.
Which led to the comment that a Who tribute band could do ‘Tommy’ in reverse order but not in correct order (and momentary contemplation of what ‘Tommy’ played in reverse order would sound like).
Which led to a remembrance of Phish performing ‘Quadrophrenia’ in its entirety in 1995 (which performance was released on CD in 2002). Which CD we had on hand and then played.

Cybersquatters risk punitive damages of $100,000 per name to divert traffic through use of a confusingly similar domain name. Universal Tube of Pennsylvania, which sells machines for making metal tubes, owns the domain name UTUBE.COM. It received 65 million hits in August, most of them, no doubt, intended for YouTube. And is it happy? No.
Universal Tube is now suing YouTube for the costs it is incurring getting slammed by all that traffic. Apparently very few people looking for LonelyGirl videos can be converted into customers for tube-making machinery.

Someone asked on the INTA discussion list: how much does a survey for use in litigation cost and someone replied:
“Just did a likelihood of confusion survey conducted over telephone with
137 professional respondents and the cost was $48,000. Does not include
any depositions or trial testimony.”
The deposition or trial testimony referred to is where the other side calls your survey expert names.
Note to people who haven’t had the pleasure of commissioning litigation surveys – phone surveys tend to cost less than the face to face surveys that involve printed materials.