The TTABlog on Hormel’s cancellation action against the SPAM ARREST mark.
Subliminal Advertisement for Trademark Lawyers
Trademark owner adopts trademark, presumably doesn’t search mark, gets demand letter, abandons expensive promotional campaign. Via applegateoregonnews.com.
Habemus Papal Domain Names
BENEDICTXVI.COM was registered April 1 of this year. POPEBENEDICTXVI.COM was registered in February.
Update: much coverage on ‘Pope-squatting.’
W 43 v. W ’04
Via cnn.com, designer of W ’43 logo sues Republican National Committee for use of W 04 logo, alleging that he had pitched his design to RNC merchandising licensee, Spalding Group.
I attempted to go The Spalding Group’s store which is really at georgewbushstore.com to see a copy of its W 04 logo (no luck). At first I mis-typed in georgebushstore.com, which turns out to be the George Bush Is The Antichrist Store.
Rated LG – Legal Guidance Suggested
This is primarily a G-Rated blog, although some material is PG-13, some is rated R, and never anything NC-17. We’ve shown one female nipple but it was made of terry cloth and therefore hard to determine the appropriate audience.
The NY Times reports that the MPAA, owner of certification trademarks for the ratings system I just used, has send a demand letter to authors of fan fiction who have been using the system to self-rate their content (so that no one looking at, for example, some Harry Potter fan fiction, inadvertently encounters some age-inappropriate tricks).
Other rating systems exist of course – The Entertainment Software Rating Board has the CEETMA system. Television has a strange inconsistently applied system that requires deciphering. There is also an Internet Content Rating Association.
Complaint in Google v. Froogles
Via Search Engine Journal, an article re Googles filing of a trademark infringement complaint against Froogles, and a copy of the complaint via Search Engine Watch.
Spirit of Cuba for Rum
St. Petersburg Times discussion of dispute between Pernod (distributor of HAVANA CLUB outside the U.S.) and Matusalem, over its use of SPIRIT OF CUBA for rum.
Light Blogging Ahead
See you next week.
Google News Use of Third Party Content
LA Times article on Google’s use of third-party news for its Google News service. Of interest: AP is asking Google to license its content.
Bar Committees As Group Annotators
I’ve been thinking some more about group annotation of legal texts and I think that substantive law-oriented groups such as The Copyright Society, or the practice committees of the various bar associations would be naturals to experiment with (and coerce members to contribute to) wiki-type annotation and linkification technology. See here for more details.