Richard Branson is a remarkable man. He is of course the man behind Virgin, the air carrier, record company and very soon aerospace company. Virgin is involved in a fight with fashion brand I am not a Virgin. Virgin does not want the fashion brand to call itself ‘I am not a Virgin’ as the [...]
Ranomi Kromowidjojo is living the Olympic dream. With two gold medals and one silver medal the Dutch swimmer is our proud Olympic Queen. Since May this year a flower grower grows a new breed of golden daisies named Ranomi, authorised by the swimmer. However, when last week the grower packed his daisies in a special [...]
The Olympics keep MarkMatters.com busy. Tomorrow on MarkMatters.com you will get an update on the “Olympic” ambushing. This post is about Paddy Power. This name did ring a bell with MarkMatters.com, but from what? Paddy Power is a betting agency. Yes, Paddy Power, that is the company behind the Danish boxer short incident on the European Championships [...]
If you want, you can turn anything decent into something dirty. Even IP. How about taking famous slogans from well-known brands and applying them to a different product, say condoms. Then the slogans get a whole new meaning. More examples here.
Chocolate manufacturer Hershey has filed an application to register its chocolate bar as a trademark. However, the mark looks suspiciously like… a chocolate bar. 3D-marks are not new. For years companies have registered and tried to register the shape of products of the shape of the packaging of product. The iconic Coca-Cola bottle is a [...]
This you won’t believe! The Egyptian Olympic Committee seems to have been scammed. The supplier of sports wear for the Egyptian athletes has sold them counterfeit Nike stuff. The athletes are outraged: on Twitter, synchronized swimmer Yomna Khallaf says that she now has had to buy new stuff herself. “The bags had Nike logos, but [...]
Tonight the mother of all sporting events is starting: the Olympic Games. London is ready and set to go. For MarkMatters.com this marks the start of our own ‘games’. Each Olympic Games, in spite of all the strict rules and regulations there are companies that will try to get some publicity. It’s called ambush marketing. [...]
As a trademark and patent practioner you might reconsider using the word Patentnews in Europe in for example a newsletter about, well, Patentnews. This word, Patentnews, has been claimed in a recently filed application in the European Union by the Polish firm Law and Patent Office Jarzynka & Partners, specialised in trademark and patent law. [...]
If you own a Mac you know the ‘chime’, the sound when you boot up you computer. A distinct and, within the Apple community, well-known sound. Nostalgic even. Apple is now trying to trademark the classic chime, a single, five tone chord. On 18 July Apple filed a Community trademark application, by submitting a staff [...]