For those of you who have read some of my previous blog posts, you already know of my love-hate relationship with Apple. Well, the following story has tipped the scales more towards hate. On July 17, 2008, Apple applied to register APP STORE as a trademark for “retail store services featuring computer software provided via [...]
Dirt Cheap v. Cheap Cheap – A Trademark Dispute Sure to Satisfy All Vices
This week’s blog post has some local flavor to it (alcohol and tobacco to be exact) thanks to a trademark dispute between two competing liquor stores here in the St. Louis area. Dotted across The Lou is a chain of twelve discount liquor and cigarette shops called DIRT CHEAP. Dirt Cheap is probably best known [...]
Naked Cowboy v. Naked Cowgirl: A Trademark Dispute Fit for a Nudist Colony (and New York City)
If you happen to be from New York City or perhaps a frequent tourist there, you may have come across Robert Burck in your journeys through the Big Apple. Burck, who is best known for strumming his guitar on the sidewalks of Times Square wearing only boots, a 10 gallon hat, and tighty-whities, has been [...]
Ridiculous Trademark Opposition of the Week – Nokia v. Sony Ericsson
After about a two month hiatus, my “Ridiculous Trademark Opposition of the Week” series continues with a battle between two titans of the cell phone industry. Nokia Corporation is the owner of various federal trademark registrations for marks that consist of a single letter and two numbers, including N70 (Reg. No. 3524307), N76 (Reg. No. [...]
Is RDIO a Trademark or a Typo?
This week’s post is in response to a fellow intellectual property attorney’s inquiry asking my opinion on the following matter (which he probably would have preferred in a 3-4 sentence email, but oh well). On May 4, 2009, a company out of California called Pulser Music Services, Inc. (“Pulser”) filed an application to register the [...]
ANDY’S v. RANDY’S: A Tasty Little Trademark Infringement Indeed
During the latter portion of this past week, I was attending the Missouri Bar Solo and Small Firm Conference in Osage Beach (home to the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks). As I was driving down U.S. 54 to The Happy Fisherman for dinner Wednesday evening (which has the best all-you-can-eat catfish and salad bar), I [...]
BILL ME LATER / EBILLME Trademark Dispute: How Simply Using a Credit Card Online Will Help Avoid Funding Litigation
My weekly search of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board records led me to a pretty interesting situation between two competing companies in the e-commerce industry whose services you’ve probably never used if you are like the 99% of Americans who aren’t completely freaked out or paralyzed by the prospect of using their credit/debit card [...]
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: “It’s more fun to file trademark oppositions than to catch crooks, so we’ll do that instead.”
As I was conducting my weekly ritual of browsing through newly-filed oppositions on the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s website, I came across one that every person who has ever purchased or traded a stock, mutual fund, or other security is helping to finance. On March 28, 2010, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission [...]
Why Relying on the Trademark Office for Your Trademark Search Will Make You Want to Go Cliff Jumping
A couple of weeks ago, a prospective client called me to ask some basic questions about the federal trademark registration process and its associated costs. We started talking about the trademark he wanted to adopt and the products with which he intended to use the mark. Of course, one of the first things we discussed [...]
Apple Files Trademark Applications to Register Its iPod, iPhone, and iPad Icons
About a week and a half ago, it came to my attention that Apple has recently filed a slew of federal trademark applications (about 30) for many of the icons that appear on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and/or iPad. For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about, each software application on [...]
