Trademark fight ditches Apple's Use of "Mighty Mouse"

A company called Man-Machine offers “hyghenic, washable keyboards and mice”, as shown at its own website here. This sounds like an appealing concept in a world where suddenly we are worried about dangerous influenza viruses (H1N1 and maybe H5N1 down the road) that could remain dangerous on workplace-related or home hobbyist surfaces. I guess one could imagine computer components that are cat proof for people who led stray neighborhood “friends” in.

But Man-Machine also has a registered trademark for its “Mighty Mouse”. A bit of background: Decades ago, 20th Century Fox developed a character “Mighty Mouse” for its Terrytone cartoons (in the days when movie theaters showed them), and this was an acceptable deviation from Disney’s “Mickey Mouse”. But totally different lines of business can use the same wordmark as long as common sense suggests there is no possibility of confusion (that can be debatable).

That’s the rub. Apple computer has gotten served for trying to use “Mighty Mouse” as the name of its new component for newer post-iMac G machines. But it makes sense that USPTO would rule against Apple (which it did on Oct. 6), because this is in the same line of business. So Apple, darn it, has to come up with another name.

The story, by Ronald O. Carlson, is on Mac.Blorge here.

Craigslist sues a few companies for spam ad generation, claiming trademark infringement

The New York Times, in the Business Section on p B4, reports today (in its “Bits Blog”) that Craiglist has followed the example set a few years back by AOL in suing spammers. The story is here. Craigslist is suing a few companies and individuals (at least one of whom is “anonymous”) for spam-loading ads on its site, claiming trademark infringement as well as copyright infringement and the violation of the DMCA.

The legal action this time seems to get some sympathy; it’s not part of the “copyright wars”.

One of the defendants is Red Trumpet, which runs “Craigsup”. When I tried to access the site, Webroot Spysweeper gave me a warning and did not let me access all of the site.

Craigslist has drawn amusing “criticism” for its use of older technology, and has legal battles on its plate due to adult services, which may have been implicated in a recent tragedy in Boston.

ICANN, US Dept of Commerce continue contract; ICANN policies continue

The United States Department of Commerce has executed a contract with ICANN for some technical management of many areas of the Internet, especially domain names. The link from ICANN is here.

In a general way, this suggests that the current policies at ICANN regarding domain name disputes, particularly with reference to trademark claims, would remain intact, and would be effective in American law, even given the concept of prior dilution in effect with the Trademark Dilution Revision Act passed in 2006.

Washington Redskins trademark to be looked at by Supreme Court after "defamation" complaint by some native Americans

Members of several federally recognized native American tribes will be able to take their case to the Supreme Court, complaining that the Washington Redskins football team name and trademark is “defamatory.” The Bloomberg story is here. We still have to find out if the Court will really take cert on the case.

Last week we reported another case here where a domain name was considered defamatory and an abuse of another trademark.

The USPTO had revoked the trademark in 1999, but subsequently the NFL won court appeals. The NFL (like MLB) is extremely vigorous in defending all its trademarks.

Other problems could occur, as with the Cleveland Indians in baseball, if the NFL loses.

Domain name spurs both defamation and trademark dispute; WIPO v. ICANN

Here’s an interesting case. Attorneys for Glenn Beck have filed a dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) claiming that a domain, to be named in a moment, infringes on Beck’s “trademarked name.” The link is here.

Ars Technica, is a detailed article by Nate Anderson, and linked by EFF, asks whether a domain name itself can be defamatory, link here. We don’t need to repeat the domain name right here, but it’s pretty raunchy. But we have to be wary of the litigation; as attorney John Dozier pointed out in a recent book (see Aug 27), we could get carried away with this: the mere appearance of some “artificial” word strings in a search engine result might be construed as defamatory (a case that happened to me with my own name; see my main blog, July 27, 2007).

Visitors may enjoy (or not enjoy) WIPO’s proposal to ICANN “to expedite domain forfeiture proceedings” here. This does not come from Jonathan Swift in your English literature courses.

Malaysian McDonald's-McCurry case mimics US trademark dilution issue

Although this posting does not directly involve US trademark law (and dilution) this case in Malaysia certain fits the spirit of dilution concerns in the US, so I posted it here rather than on the International blog.

A restaurant called McCurry, which produces well known Malaysian fast food, has been in litigation with McDonald’s, in a case that is called copyright infringement but that sounds more like the US concept of trademark dilution. To a well-educated western consumer, the case sounds silly. No one would be confused by the Irish prefix “Mc” in multiple corporate names. And no one would confuse the restaurants, even if McDonald’s offers similar Asian fare (probably as a low-fat, healthful offering).

Jadeep Kumar has a story (Malaysian) “Court to take up McDonalds-McCurry issue on Monday” in Singapore’s paper “Top News.”

Discovery's e-book raises patent, trademark questions

On Saturday, Aug. 29, Mike Musgrove wrote an article in the Washington Post, Washington Business, “Discovery E-Book Filing Raises Eyebrows: Maryland Firm Mum on Patent Application”, link here.

The story is interesting because Discovery Communications, a media company known for documentary science films, housed in Silver Spring MD, is making a patent filing and trademark filing for a new E-book reader and even claims infringement by Amazon’s Kindle.