Trademark Law Archives - KEYTLaw's Blog

Charity Brawl: Nonprofits Aren’t So Generous When a Name’s at Stake

Wall St. Journal: “As the leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen For the Cure helped make “for the cure” a staple of the fund-raising vernacular. The slogan is so popular that dozens of groups have sought to trademark names incorporating the phrase . . . . Komen . . . launching a not-so-friendly legal battle against . . . fund-raisers that it contends are poaching its name.”

See “What’s in a Name? Lessons learned from current trademark battles.”

Two Greasy Grills Battle Over Trademark Involving Food To Die For

Arizona Republic: “Former nutritionist Jon Basso [owns the] . . . Heart Attack Grill. The grill is a medical-themed restaurant in Chandler that serves high-calorie foods and no diet drinks. . . . Brasso has become embroiled in a federal lawsuit with the Heart Stoppers Sports Grill on Interstate 95 I-95 in Delray Beach, Fla., over bragging rights to unhealthy food. Basso claims exclusive rights to, among other things, the federally registered trademark, ‘A Taste Worth Dying For.’ The Florida grill advertises ‘Desserts to Die For’.”

Trademark Nation: Who Dat Who Own Who Dat?

The Huffington Post: “Had Saints fans chanted, ‘Who Are Those Who Claim They Can Defeat The Saints, Who Are Those?’ then perhaps the NFL would not have found itself in a trademark dispute last week, but instead the fans chanted, ‘Who Dat Who Say Dey Beat Dem Saints, Who Dat, Who Dat’, and there you are. The origins of Who Dat? are lost in the misty recesses of jargon, but some trace the cheer back to a Louisiana high school team. By 1983 Aaron Neville had recorded a version for the Saints, then referred to as the Aints. The Saints, by the way, got their name from the gospel song, which got the name from Catholicism.”

Don’t Mess with U of Texas’ Longhorn Trademark

Professor Eric Johnson: “My alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, has distinguished itself as a trademark bully, happy to squelch free speech in the pursuit of licensing revenues. Here’s just one example: A couple years ago, they sued an outfit making t-shirts, sold to fans of rival Texas A&M, that depicted a broken Longhorns logo with the taunt, “Saw ’em off.” (Fellow UT alum Siva Vaidhyanathan’s take is here.)”

File Extensions Cannot be Trademarks

Internet Cases: “One of the issues in the case of Autodesk, Inc. v. Dassault Systemes Solidworks was whether Autodesk could claim trademark rights and the letters ‘DWG‘. The .dwg (‘drawing’) file extension is the native file format for Autodesk’s flagship product AutoCAD. Plaintiff Autodesk moved for summary judgment on the trademark issue. The defendant pointed out that the trademark laws do not permit one to claim exclusive rights in trademarks that are merely functional.”