Law.com article discussing demise of Pennie & Edmonds, laying the blame in part to accrual, rather than cash, accounting.

There’s an easy pun to be made regarding GEORGE BUSH diapers.  Story via BBC.

The saga of  TILLAMOOK cheddar of Tillamook County, Oregon, continues, via Mercury News.  Previous TILLAMOOK dispute here

A sad story often re-told.  The Washington Post uses washingtonpost.com for its website but uses the domain name washpost.com for email.  This story reports that email communications were knocked out when the renewal notice for the domain name was sent to what the Washington Post describes as “a drop box that was not being monitored,” and the name expired.   The Post noticed the de-activation immediately and therefore was able to get it up and running again prior ‘redemption grace period’ and then de-listing.

Incidents of high-profile names expiring are rife (Microsoft’s Hotmail service was endangered a while back).  Things that you can do include:

1.  Register your important domain names for the longest term possible.

2.  Register domain names only on your birthday, so you remember the expiration date.

3.  Conduct an audit of your names (gTLDs and ccTLDs), to determine what you have and who the contacts are.

Neal Greenfield, co-author of INTA publication Trademark Law & Internet, is affiliated with SchwimmerLegal, and has conducted audits for large and small domain name portfolios.  He would be happy to discuss conducting a domain name audit for you.  You can reach him at neal@schwimmerlegal.com.

The Smoking Gun posts the complaint of a Knoxville woman who has filed a class action against Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, MTV, CBS, etc., on behalf of a class consisting of “all American citizens who watched the outrageous conduct” at the Super Bowl.”  Her theory is that the corporate defendants had an implied contract with every one watching, not to broadcast lewd and outrageous acts (paragraph 17).  Unfortunately, this plays right into the hands of the TV industry, which, now that we have admitted to the existence of an implied contract between us and the TV networks, will counterclaim that everyone who watches television has an implied contract not to use Tivo to skip commercials.  Background on one TV exec’s blinkwrap theory here.

Via Nerdlaw, we find a link to this press release from a comic book implying that it received a demand letter from DC and Marvel, alleging that they jointly own the trademark SUPER HERO (and forced the comic book to remove the term from its title).

I didn’t see the actual demand letter and maybe the press release misstates some of the facts in the case, so I’ll only ‘hmmm’ silently to myself.

But I will add that one element of the definition of a trademark is that it designates a single source of origin.   While there is the concept of joint ownership, two unrelated companies holding themselves out as two unrelated companies tend not to meet this definition.

Also, DC disclaimed ‘SUPER HEROES’ in Reg. 2730169 for the mark POCKET SUPER HEROES.

BE THAT AS IT MAY: Cadence Industries, AKA Marvel and DC Comics obtained a registration for SUPER HEROES for comic books back in 1981.  It is now assigned to DC and Marvel as separately identified owners.  LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES is owned by DC.  MARVEL SUPER HEROES was registered by Cadence and assigned to Marvel.  Marvel owns MARVEL SUPER HERO ISLAND.

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT:  NY trademark lawyer Peter Sloane alerts me to the registration for SWISS ARMY KNIFE, which is jointly owned by Wenger and Victorinox, and the TTAB decision that discusses whether two unrelated companies selling competitive products can be joint-owners of the same trademark registration.  In pertinent part, the TTAB notes:

“Where two entities have a long-standing relationship and rely on each other for quality control, it may be found, in appropriate circumstances, that the parties, as joint owners, represent a single source.”

The SWISS ARMY KNIFE mark, as acknowledged by the TTAB, is a unique mark.  The Swiss Army had licensed Wenger and Victorinox to produce, er, swiss army knives, per its specifications, for over 100 years.

I don’t have access to any possible contractual relationship between DC and Marvel regarding quality control of the SUPER HERO mark.

Some blogging on this issue here, via Briefs on the Outside, and Newsarama, and the Wikipedia entry for Superhero.

As for genericness, the question is: what is the primary signficance of the term SUPER HERO to the purchasing public?

Professor Susan Crawford on a draft bill proposing criminal punishment for wilfully false whois data.

Bacardi has been dealt a setback in its quest to secure the HAVANA CLUB trademark.  This, despite the assistance of Jeb Bush’s ex parte contacts with the Trademark Office.  Story here via HillNews.com, background here and lots of background here.