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 [...]
“Remember the Alamo…and Remember to Register It!”
Earlier this week, I happened to come across an interesting article from the online version of The Dallas Morning News regarding a trademark dispute brewing between the State of Texas and a non-profit corporation called The Daughters of the Republic of Texas (“The Daughters”), which has operated and maintained The Alamo museum in San Antonio [...]
Ridiculous Trademark Opposition of the Week – Carefusion v. Numeritex
My “Ridiculous Trademark Opposition of the Week” series is revived this week after a long hiatus thanks to a company located in San Diego called Carefusion 2200, Inc. Carefusion is the owner of a federal registration dating back to 1999 for the trademark VERSA-TRAC, which is registered for “lumbar spine retractors used for surgery of [...]
Tiny Ads on Google = Large Trademark Disputes In Courts
The week’s post comes courtesy of my twin brother Joe, who is also a licensed attorney living in Columbus, Ohio. Like a good older brother (by 6 minutes), he’s always looking out for fascinating trademark topics on which I can bloviate to my heart’s content. Well, my bro has come through for me over the [...]
Apple IPAD Trademark Update – The Story Keeps Getting Better!
A couple of months ago, I wrote about a potential trademark dispute stemming from Apple’s intended use of the name IPAD in connection with its soon-to-be-released tablet computer device. As a refresher, Fujitsu has owned a pending application for IPAD since 2003 for a “hand-held computing device for wireless networking in a retail environment.” According [...]
U.S. Senate Candidate on Trademark Infringement: “I Did It For The People Of This Great Country!”
About 10 days ago, a friend of mine forwarded to me this brief article which talks about an unauthorized use of a trademark owned by the Columbus Blue Jackets professional hockey team. According to the article, a campaign volunteer for Libertarian Marc Delphine of Oregon (who is running for a seat in the United States [...]
