Boho Lawyer

This is an excellent article, with some top notch legal commentary about why a company or a brand might go on the attack with when they fear their trademark or copyright is in danger of infringement. At issue here is the caviar manicure (who knew?), the close knit community of nail polish bloggers (again, who knew?) and whether or not the phrase “caviar manicure” is already too generic to get a green light from the PTO.

(And I would click through just to see the amazing illustration, but that’s just me.)

This is how you do it.  A pleasant, respectful letter from Jack Daniels to an author explaining exactly why they’d like him to change his cover designat his earliest convenienceand even helping to defray costs, if costs are an issue in the redesign. The old adage, you catch more flies with honey is apparently an old adage for a reason.

This story never gets old, does it? We’ve already met the Irish teenager who sells red peel and stick soles to paste onto the back of your less-than-fancy-shoes to give them that Louboutin Look. Now Duets Blog tells us about some more ingenious folk across the pond who are buying cans of red spray paint and doing a little DIY:

According to British newspaper The Telegraph :”Sales of red gloss colours such as Duracoat’s ‘Flame’ and ‘Show Stopper’ have soared by 40 per cent compared to the same period last year and Homebase claim the surge is due to women copying the Louboutin shoes worn by their style icons which retail for up to £635.”

And of course you know that Christain Louboutin — the real Christain Louboutin — and his company are busy trying to trademark a particular shade of red to keep Irish teenagers, British fashionistas and less judgment proof folk such as Christain Dior from using it altogether. So far, that hasn’t been working out so well.

Briefly:  Popehat says The “Streisand Effect” refers to the the tendency of any attempt to censor online information to result in that information being far more widely distributed.

Yes, there are copyright violators and trademark infringers running loose out here on the Internet. You may need to write a takedown notice and ask them to stop violating and infringing. But as Popehat so beautifully says, “Sometimes courtesy and friendliness are more effective than bluster and demands. Not only does that approach get results, it’s far less likely to go viral — a polite and friendly request doesn’t play into any narratives.”

Word.

Every iPad may be a tablet, but every tablet is not an iPad.

We have Macs and we have PCs. Everybody knows the difference. We have iPads and we have tablets. Everyone knows which is which. Apple makes the former and everybody and their brother makes the latter. Simple.

Or is it? The rush not to call every tablet an iPad has made life a little bit more difficult for some shoppers, including The Boholawyer, who recently tried to buy a protective (and pretty) cover for her new Kindle Fire. Covers are described as Tablet covers. Lots of pointing and clicking ensued to see if the lovely (and it is!) Kindle Fire would fit in the pictured sleeve.

The AP article worries about a likelihood of confusion and the possibility that iPad will follow Xerox and Kleenex into the language, but it doesn’t seem very likely at this point. As much as I love my Kindle Fire (and I do) there’s no mistaking it for an iPad - either in appearance or performance.

Ashley Furniture decides to call one of its sofas “The Brando.” Lawsuits ensue. Previously, Ashley named a really ugly sofa after Humphrey Bogart. The estates of these iconic actors allege violation of publicity rights, trademark and likelihood of confusion. (Whether anyone would think the Bogart or Brando estates had anything to do with either one of these pieces of furniture is debatable, and also amusing.)

This is an old Boing-Boing post detailing which colors belong to what companies and/or products and how they are applied, with the usual excellent commentary that adds to the story. Meanwhile, this Salon article Can You Own a Color has some good background and links to interesting case law.

It all began with one old poster in the bottom of a box in a UK bookstore. What happened after that is an anything but calm story of trademarks, domain names, cease & desist notices.

“Defendants’ argument that Madonna created the ‘Material Girl’ mark through her performances fails as a matter of law,” California Judge S. James Otero writes in an order denying summary judgment. “This Court and other courts have recognized that the singing of a song does not create a trademark.”