I am the guy you met in Scottsdale and this is the website I told you to check out.

Catching up on trademark news from last week, the November 13 New York Times reports that UBS has retired the WARBURG and PAINEWEBBER brands (Thank you PaineWebber, now get out). Thursday’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting profile on SUAVE shampoo, referring to its conscious effort to refer to competitors’ trademarks and trade-dress (including colors of bottles). For example, my household has a bottle of SUAVE Professionals Humectant, which states conspicuously on its label that it “Nourishes hair as well as NEXXUS Therappe.” Finally, I ran across the Perfume Detective in Yonkers, New York. They will help you locate discontinued perfumery brands (a service useful to both ardent fans and trademark litigators).

Here is an article from Sourceforge regarding the status of the LINUX trademark.  What is doesn’t make clear enough is that Linus Torvarlds, author of the LINUX operating system, owns a registered trademark 1916230 for LINUX, and all other things being eqaul, third parties cannot own trademarks incorproating that term for goods and services realted to operating systems.  Do a metasearch of the term LINUX to see how many applications will be rejected.

Thanks to Bret at icann.blog for a link to First-person notes to oral arguments in the Victor’s Little Secret case before the Supreme Court (which provide links to briefs in the case).  While absolutely worth reading, the note-taker didn’t really frame the case properly – he says the case will turn on the quantum of evidence in the record – not really.  This is about standard of proof, not level of proof, which is different.  Should the standard in a dilution case be proof of liklihood of dilution as opposed to proof of actual dilution.  However the paucity of proof of economic harm to the trademark owner may be just what convinces the court that proof of actual dilution should be the standard.

 

Professor Lessig shines the spotlight on lawyers for the Metropolitan Opera, for shutting a fansite named Metmaniac.com.  The issue, however, doesn’t seem as clear-cut as the professor makes it sound.  Prof. Lessig does provide a link to a cached copy of the site, which indicates that it was faciliating the swapping of tapes of broadcasts.  At some point swapping tapes with friends becomes a business in infringing works.

A good press agent helps Kate Spade get the word out.  This is the second profile in two weeks the NY Times has run on Barbara Kolsun, general counsel of Kate Spade, and former head of the International Anticouterfeiting Coalition.  Interesting comment is her assertion that recently there were 900 auction sites selling fake Kate Spade purses.  Also of interest was the comment that she had obtained assistance from the Simon Properties (which owns 140 malls nationwide), in cracking down on mall kiosks selling infringing goods. 

Bad week for Marvel Comics.  First, in the Second Circuit, Captain America creator Joseph Simon had his suit reinstated against Marvel, regarding the grant of the rights to Captain America.  This decision involves questions of equitable estoppel and termination of grants under the 1909 Copyright Act.  Next, Stan Lee sued Marvel, asking for a share of the profits from the Spiderman movie, and from the upcoming Daredevil movie (starring Ben AFLAC).