The new and improved DOMAIN DOSSIER (permalink on the left side of the
Trademark Blog home page) is four domain name tools in one.

First, enter a string and it provides a Whois for all five major TLDs (comnetorgbizinfo).

Second, it provides a link to an active website for that name, if one exists.

Thirdly, it tells you whether there is configured email for that name.  This is important, because many trademark owners when investigating a domain name, don’t see a website and conclude that a name is being warehoused.  The name may in fact be in use for email.

Fourth, as a bonus, it porovides the top 5 Google hits for that string.

Give it a test-run.  Famous trademarks provide an interesting tet, as do commonly used sexual expressions.  It’s querying several sources at once, so the search takes about a minute.

I would call this tool the Swiss Army Whois but I would get demand letters from Wenger, Victorinox and the Swiss Army itself.  For now we’re calling it the Domain Dossier.

I was introduced by a colleague to a company named Genuone, which specializes in brand protection technology.  They ran a demo for me of something I hadn’t seen before. Their software uses spidering technology to go out and look for websites which misuse brands.  This could be a powerful way for companies to really get a good “onlne brand picture.”  Their various tools can look at things like how trademarks are being used in top-level domains, in web content,  and in the online distribution channel. 

What  caught my eye was a demo of the pricing module they ran for me, which used a pharmaceutical product.  The results included specific pricing, dosage, and product fulfillment (no prescription, online medical consultation, etc) information.  The program calculated things like the average price of the product on the web, and highlighted significant deviation.  The point is that substantial under-pricing could be an indicator of grey- or black-market product.  It seems that this would be of interest not only as an IP-protection tool but as a market-intelligence gathering tool

Check out VERTU, a subsidiary of NOKIA, selling a $21,000 phone.  I agree with Wired’s assessment, that this is an attempt at the first luxury brand in telecommunications.  We will see more luxury versions of electronic items which are accessories – PDAs and to a lesser extent, laptops.  I don’t think we will see luxury desktop PCs soon (because CEOs are in a reduced psotion to ask for $100,000 status symbols).

CBS alleges that “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” infringes its rights in “Survivor” and has sued ABC.  Here’s a BBC article referring to the UK version of “I’m a Celebrity . . . ” as a ‘Survivor spin-off.’ (both reality shows are based on UK versions). Bob Geldof (of Boomtown Rats fame) owns the rights to ‘Survivor’ and began threatening legal action a while back.  My legal assistant probably doesn’t know who the Boomtown Rats were.

Kidnapping target and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice, has reportedly protested UK football team Peterborough United’s use of the trademark POSH and THE POSH.  Peterborough claims it has been known as the Posh since the 1920’s.  Ms. Beckham is married to Man Utd’s David Beckham.  More trademark stories tangentially related to soccer here and here.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, is one of the best shows on TV, along with West Wing, Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Good Eats, Samurai Jack and Law and Order: SUV.

 

In the October 10 episode of CSI, the real estate agent who let the murderer into the house to kill the rich guy whose son was sleeping with his young second wife, was seen holding a sign with a red, white and blue insignia and the word ‘realtor.’  The real estate agent was suspected of videotaping the young wife while naked (the wife, not the real estate agent) but it turned out to be a cardboard cut-out of the real estate agent and the murderer was really hired by, well, this is about trademarks so it doesn’t matter.

 Now Re/Max, the real estate company, is suing CBS because the red, white and blue sign allegedly resembles its logo (and the real estate agent was not portrayed in a flattering light).  They have also notified the National Association of Realtors that the show infringed the REALTOR trademark (but see here re alleged genericide of REALTOR mark).

Here’s one place to start for some cites to cases about what you can do with a third party’s trademark in a non-competitive situation.

To the person who came to this site by using “Day of the Week Panties” as a Google search term, I simply don’t know why your search engine returned this site as a hit and I’m sorry if I wasted your time.  But as long as you’re here, can I interest you in perhaps a trademark application?

Note to the confused: Userland software allows me to see what Google terms were used to refer people to this site.