In Brief:   No federal protection for trademarks related to ingesting a banned substance.

In Brief:  The USPTO refused to register “Assholes Live Forever” as a trademark.

In Brief:  Abandoned trademarks may have a life beyond abandonment.

Shannon DeVivo, a professional environmental engineer, wanted to encourage women and girls to seek careers in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math). So Shannon wrote a series of books titled “The Engirlneers”. The books also invite readers to visit www.engirlneer.com to “Learn how to become an Engirlneer”. The books and the website feature fictional female characters with interests in STEM-related fields.

For about 20 years, Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc. has been battling Marcel Fashions Group, Inc. over their trademarks. The US Supreme Court finally ended Lucky Brand’s struggle. At least for now.

As the holiday season ramps up, a question arises. Can someone own a holiday trademark? Many have tried with various levels of success. The successful registrations don’t try to corner the market on holiday greetings. Here are some examples.

Luxottica Group S.A. owns the trademark, Ray-Ban, and its subsidiary owns the trademark, Oakley, for sunglasses. According to Luxottica, International Malls’ subtenants were selling counterfeit Ray-Bans and Oakleys. Luxottica sued the landlords for trademark infringement. The landlords defended the action asserting that they aren’t the infringers; their subtenants are.

After the Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 2016 (breaking a 108 year losing streak), Ronald Mark Huber filed an intent to use trademark application for the word “Cubnoxious”. The Chicago Cubs Baseball Club LLC opposed the application. The Cubs were able to establish that Ronald had no real intent to use the trademark in commerce. All he had was one sheet of paper showing potential imprints on t-shirts. He submitted a conclusory statement that he intended to use it in no specific geographic area and not specifically to target Cubs fans. He had no business plan, no marketing plan, no established business experience and no experience in the sports industry. It could have ended there but the Cubs also opposed the application on the basis of a likelihood of confusion. That’s where the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s decision in favor of the Cubs got fun.

Express Oil Change used the service mark “Tire Engineers” for its tire sales, repair and maintenance services. The Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers & Surveyors had a problem with that. According to the Board, no one can use the word “engineer” unless they are actually engineers and have registered for a license to practice engineering in Mississippi.

The famous movie producer, Sam Goldwyn, is credited with saying that “An oral contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”. The son of Bob Ross, the Joy of Painting icon, found out that there’s an exception to this rule.

With smoldering eyes, the beautiful and brave romance writers defended their realm. %CUT% Faleena Hopkins is a self-published romance author of steamy romances with titles like, “Cocky Soldier: A Military Romance” and “Cocky Roomie”. Faleena’s company, Hop Hop Productions, Inc., registered two trademarks for the word “cocky” in relation to a series of romance novels. Faleena sent out cease and desist letters to other romance writers advising them that “cocky” has found its one true love and no one else can use the word in their book titles. In response to this attempt to keep the word “cocky” from its other true loves, a group of romance writers published a collection of short stories titled “Cocktales: The Cocky Collective”. Faleena filed suit to stop the publication. The Author’s Guild and the Romance Writers of America, rescued one of the defendants, author Tara Crescent, by paying the past due taxes on the plantation, I mean, paying her legal bills. The court denied Faleena’s motions for a preliminary and temporary restraining order against the protest work. The court held that the “cocky” marks were weak and customers would not be likely to be confused between Faleena’s books and other books using the word in their titles. On another note, a proceeding to cancel Faleena’s trademarks is now pending before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. So there may be a sequel to this romantic tale of the word “cocky”.

Advertising a discount that disappears at point of purchase is a problem. %CUT% A customer of Hobby Lobby, wanted to buy a picture frame. She believed she was getting a 50 percent discount on a photo frame due to an in-store sign stating "Photo Frames 50% OFF the Marked price.” Hobby Lobby didn’t honor the discount but instead pointed to disclaimer language that said, "DISCOUNTS PROVIDED EVERY DAY; MARKED PRICES REFLECT GENERAL U.S. MARKET VALUE FOR SIMILAR PRODUCTS." The customer brought a class action suit based on false advertising as well as other causes of action. Hobby Lobby’s motion to dismiss was denied. The court held that a reasonable consumer could have been misled despite the disclaimer language. So the suit will proceed.

The USPTO can no longer ban scandalous and immoral trademarks. %CUT% Erik Brunetti wanted to register the word “FUCT” for his apparel line. The USPTO refused registration because the word sounded like a swear word. Erik appealed to the Federal Circuit. The appeals court overturned the ruling saying that the government’s rule against registering profane, sexual and otherwise objectionable language violates the First Amendment. Acknowledging that the government didn’t have a substantial interest in policing offensive speech, the Federal Circuit opined that the First Amendment “protects private expression, even private expression which is offensive to a substantial composite of the general public.”

The USPTO’s audit procedure sets up a ‘use it or lose it’ proposition. %CUT% The owner of a registered trademark has to file a declaration of use between the 5th and 6th year after registration and then on every 10th anniversary of registration. The USPTO will conduct random audits of about 10% of the filed declarations of use. The USPTO’s audit system will maintain the integrity of the trademark registration system by insuring that a trademark is actually being used for the registered goods and services. If the trademark owner cannot provide sufficient specimens of use, the goods or services will be deleted from the trademark registration.

Google avoided the ignominious fate of losing its trademark due to genericide. %CUT% Trademark protection extinguishes when the trademark becomes interchangeable with the name of the product or service. This process is called “genericide”. Some famous examples of genericide are aspirin for pain reliever, cellophane for plastic wrap and thermos for a vacuum flask. Two people filed a proceeding with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to cancel the Google trademark due to it having become a generic word for searching on the Internet. The TTAB denied the cancellation and the plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court affirmed the TTAB. The Court’s opinion stated that even though the public might use the term as a verb, the Google mark could still serve as a source identifier.

The year 2016 had its share of notable people who got the attention of federal criminal authorities. Here are the winners. %CUT% As we enter awards season, we recognize those who put considerable time and effort into criminal activity involving Intellectual Property. The awards go to:

As the Cubs neared their historic World Series win, opportunists saw a way to cash in. %CUT% Imagine if you will, it’s September 2016. Cubs are on their way to breaking a 108 year losing streak. The streets of Chicago are lined with euphoric fans. Tables full of Cubs merchandise are everywhere. Street vendors are encouraging fans (whether die hard or fair weather) to purchase logo branded merchandise to support the Cubs. But there’s a problem with this picture. Some of those vendors don’t have a license from the Cubs. So, their blue, red and white merchandise is counterfeit. The Cubs filed suit against 84 counterfeit vendors seeking an injunction. The suit was settled with a confidential settlement agreement and a permanent injunction. What isn’t confidential is that the vendors acknowledged that their products bear “substantially indistinguishable” or “confusingly similar” imitations of the Cubs’ marks. The vendors also admitted they have no legitimate right to use those marks.

Sometimes, the last word isn’t really the last word. %CUT% Here are some updates for previous posts:

The New York Yankees were not amused when someone tried to register parodies of its famous trademarks %CUT%. IET Products thought it would be funny to register trademarks that parodied the New York Yankees longtime logo and catch phrase. IET replaced the bat on the logo with a syringe referring to alleged steroid use by the players. Not willing to stop there, IET also sought to register “The House that Juice Built” as a parody of the famous catch phrase “The House that Ruth Built” (meaning Babe Ruth for the initiated). The TTAB refused to allow registration of IET’s marks. The TTAB reasoned that IET wasn’t really interested in making commercial use of the marks because they were going to be used as an “ornaments” on IET’s goods.

If you don’t use your trademark, it could become a zombie. %CUT% Macy’s Department Stores has been absorbing local department stores and their trademarks for decades. Once Macy’s takes over, it rebrands the store. But, those old department store trademarks still exist in the minds of the consuming public. In other words, the dead trademarks became zombies. Seeing the marketing potential of zombie trademarks, Strategic Marks started selling T-shirts using them. Macy’s filed a trademark infringement suit against Strategic Marks and won. It helped that Macy’s hadn’t really abandoned most of the trademarks. It was using them in its “Heritage Collection”. In the end, the parties settled and Macy’s transferred some trademarks to Strategic Marks.

Someone registered the trademarks associated with Yosemite National Park and it wasn’t the National Park Service. How could that happen? %CUT% Until recently, the National Park Service had a concessions contract with Delaware North Parks & Resorts Inc. to run Yosemite National Park attractions, including the Ahwahnee Hotel, the Wawona Hotel, Curry Village and Badger Pass. Delaware North lost the contract in an open bidding process. Delaware North filed suit claiming that the bidding process was unfair. Then Delaware North pointed out that one of its subsidiaries had registered the trademarks associated with Yosemite. Now Delaware North won’t let the National Park Service and the successful concessions contractor use the trademarks. The National Park Service has brought a proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board seeking cancellation of the registrations based upon “False Association”, “Abandonment” and “Dilution”.