Who Is Your Lawyer? » Trademark

Charlie Sheen and the Trademark Factory

Robert Scott Lawrence — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:08:10 +0000

I love trademarks, right? Because that’s what I do, trademark logos and cool sayings, and practice my VATICAN NINJA ASSASSIN moves on other attorneys who try to impede my God-given right to obtain the exclusive use to everyday words and catch phrases and lock them down so other people (i.e., you) have to pay my client a huge fee if you want to use them. You want to say FACE on television, buddy? That will be 10,000 smackeroos, or I’ll see you in court.

GOOGLE me if you think I’m joking, you YAHOO.

I’m the guy who helped get FACEBOOK the rights to BOOK, too, so that none of you literary types could even say the word in connection with anything at all, ever, unless you paid me. You want to open up a BOOK-store? Well, guess what, it’s “Show me the money!!!!” time here in Trademark City. Words are my business, and I will hoot and holler and grunt and even cry in front of the PTO and any commission you care to put me in front of so that I can have exclusive rights to any word I want. Just so you and I are clear: I have the ability to take common words such as BOX, or TOY — or even THING – and yank them out of the common lexicon.

Don’t know what LEXICON is? Good. That’s my word; I took that one years ago and now nobody even remembers it.

This is part of the strategy I market under the trademark DUH, WINNING, which is a phrase I coined in my ADONIS DNA-altered youth when I accidentally ingested TIGER BLOOD and transformed myself into a televangelist for over 30 seconds, and thereby participated in a divine revelation that eventually resulted in my worldwide nomination as a ROCK STAR FROM MARS.

You think you have LION BLOOD, or AVATAR BLOOD, or SCIENTOLOGY BLOOD like Tom Cruise? You think even tigers can say the words “tiger blood”? Well you don’t, and they can’t, because all of that is related to TIGER BLOOD, which can only be used with my permission.

In fact, anyone who wants to trademark any crazy words or phrases had better just see me first and cut a deal, because otherwise it is just NO GO, and NO DICE and NO WAY and NOT NICE. (I have trademark applications pending for those too, so you better watch it!)

If you have any questions about how trademarks work, call me on my cell at 1-(DUH)-WIN-NING.

Live Nude Copyrights

Robert Scott Lawrence — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:27:28 +0000

Dear readers, fans, intellectual property aficionados, and assorted paparazzi,

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve fallen down on the job. In strict counterpoint to Future Tom and his almost mythological daily posting, my production has withered as my workload has increased. The new move, the new job, the new commute, the new hairstyle — they all conspired to throw me off my game. Instead of posting jocular commentary about the insanity of the virtual world and the plebeian nearsightedness of the PTO, I have been applying myself at work, Hemingway-style, engaged in industry, high finance, and the tedium of document review. My lighthearted moments appear at increasingly longer ends of the sine wave, and tend to strike me unawares about 11:00 at night, when I climb into my IP-laden Tesla roadster and silently zip home on the toll roads to the Elysian hunting camp in which I now reside.

I post here in an almost-but-not-quite embarrassed fashion to explain to you that with respect to my blog — just as with my languishing marathon training — I have adopted a new resolve. I vow to post more frequently and regain the vigor of my misspent youth. If you thought I was amusing before, prepare yourself for an entirely new level of amusement, Rabelaisian in scope, Machiavellian in design, Neapolitan in choice of pastry.

And when, you ask, will this new romance commence?

Soon. Very soon. Perhaps as soon as the day after yesterday.

If you misplaced or forgot to bookmark my URL, please subscribe to my feed now. For those of you who hate to subscribe to things but still have sufficient neurological juice left in your big big brains to remember short phrases, just open up your browser and type “Who Is Your Lawyer” in one of its myriad forms (e.g., Who Is Your Lawyer, whoisyourlawyer, whois your lawyer, whoisyour lawyer, or even “who’s your lawyer” or “whos your lawyer“). Eventually, you will find your way to my site, as all variations of Who Is Your Lawyer? lead to me.

Be forewarned that on occasion these latter variations of my name will attempt to waylay the distractible reader with intriguing articles about the now-defunct series Rex Is Not Your Lawyer. As much as I hate to say it, that is not my series nor my site, as I am not David Tennant (however much I appreciate his work in Dr. Who).

Trademark In A Box?

Robert Scott Lawrence — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:00:17 +0000

So you decide you want to trademark your brand, and you start looking around for names that sound attractive and coincide with your corporate needs and image. After late night bull sessions with your fellow officers and running your proposal by the bartender at Daily’s, you decide that your company — which makes industrial strength boxes for the discerning consumer — should have a trademark worthy of its product.

You decide to call the company BOX.

Simple, elegant, no-nonsense, the name says it all. You are BOX, like YHWH is the architect of the universe and Madonna is the icon of 80s pop. It not only is what it is, it says what it is, and what it says is unmistakably boxy and smart, not only sharp-edged but cutting edge.

The one problem with your grand design is, of course, that BOX is — to be polite — fairly descriptive. Even in another language it would be safe to assume that pretty much everyone knows what a box is and uses the word (and the item itself) regularly. This creates a dilemma for you, since unlike made-up words (e.g., Yahoo), descriptive marks are frowned upon by the policy interpreters at the PTO. Oh, you may beg to differ when you hear that FACE or BOOK made it to the review stage, but at the end of the day plain vanilla descriptive terms have a much harder time making it out of the office alive.

So what’s the secret to getting a descriptive term made into a protectable mark? Simple Simon says the answer is: word combining. If COW isn’t protectable, try SKINNY COW. If COFFEE isn’t protectable, try PURE BLACK COFFEE. If BURGERS doesn’t pass muster, try KILLER BURGERS. The more words you use, the greater the chance your trademark will be granted.

So what does that mean for BOX? It means you need to find another great word to add to it, for a one-two punch that will stick in consumers’ minds. Although logically this should be easy, the reality is that trade names are like hot URLs, and you will find that most of the obvious names are already taken. Latecomers to the game have to get inventive to come up with a good name for a trademark, which can be a bit discouraging (like finding your real name used by somebody else on Twitter), but do not despair. All is not lost.

In the case of BOX, a quick TESS search shows hundreds of marks in use, including but not limited to the following: Feedbox, Stormbox, Durabox, Shockbox, Chewbox, Juicebox, Aquabox, Superbox, Shelterbox, Smart Box, Hot Box, Busy Box, Jury Box, Inkbox, Cyberbox, Onbox, Singlebox, Hintbox, Onebox, Zen Box, Blackbox, Ultra Box, Viewbox, Cinebox, Bluebox, Yabox, Tool Box, Night Box, Bam Box, Hbox, Sugarbox, Speedbox, Smashbox, Coldbox, Job Box, Fuelbox, Trade Box, Rock Box, Thatbox, Juke Box, Fuse Box, Saucebox, Artbox, Velvet Box, The God Box, The Glitter Box, Out Of The Box, Boxmaster, The Secret Box, Dr. Joe’s Secret Box, Office In A Box, Face Lift In A Box, Captain In A Box, Divorce Tool Box, Bones In A Box, and everyone’s cheesy favorite, Jack In The Box.

Are you daunted? Don’t be. As someone once said, “Hope remains while the fellowship is true.” A smart trademark attorney (like the one who came up with SMART BOX) or marketing team will present you with hundreds of additional combinations to choose from, and they’ll even vet them for you in the market prior to launching your brand. How do you think the 4 Hour Work Week found a title? That’s why the marketing gurus sit back and rub their bellies after lunch — they get paid to ferret out cool names.

So now that I have disillusioned you in your quest to pick the perfect name by yourself while sitting in your room alone brainstorming, go out and hire a brainiac to do your thinking for you. Don’t box yourself in by going it alone.

World Famous Trademarks

Robert Scott Lawrence — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:48:03 +0000

The other day a friend of mine was talking about the way we recognize symbols and what they mean to us. He suggested that with the end of the series Smallville a huge portion of the nation’s bloated television audience would no longer be exposed to even a hint of the symbol of strength and courage by which the Man of Steel is known, but instead would find themselves unhappily relegated to watching re-runs of Cheers or M.A.S.H. or even older late-night paradigms of hopelessness (e.g., Archie Bunker). A symbol that we can look up to in times of trouble is something we all need, of course, but I found it oddly intriguing that the symbol he looked toward was a make-believe superhero from the Golden Age.

Upon further reflection, I attribute his thinking to the society we live in, which is inundated with stars both real and imagined, but which of late seems to have openly embraced the icons created so long ago by the stalwarts of the comics industry. Thus, recent years have seen a spate of movies about the Dark Knight, Daredevil, Iron Man, the X-Men, Wolverine, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four — to name a few — and the superhero bandwagon shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. This year alone has witnessed new films about the Green Hornet, the Green Lantern, and everyone’s favorite hammer-loving knucklehead, Thor.

America has grown so fond of heroes leaping around in multi-colored tights like jesters in a Shakespearian farce that a cottage industry has grown up devoted to making fun of superhero movies. Do you remember that Oh-so-forgettable Will Smith vehicle about the drunken superhero who drank to forget the sorrow of losing his one and only super-mate? Who had ditched him to marry a human and was hiding her own stupendous array of superpowers? Yes, I’m talking about Hancock, for any of you brave enough to own up to having seen it.

But I’m not just talking about overt (and some might say ham-handed) rips on superhero-dom, but about more subtle plays on the nature of the beast as well. For example, let’s look at Kung Fu Panda, which I will admit was a winner not only at the box office but in the hearts and minds of little kiddies everywhere. Like many a Jack Black film, if you liked the Jack Black vibe you were already halfway to liking the movie. Unlike many of his lesser efforts, however, this had a sustained brilliance that perfectly encapsulated the idea behind much of superhero fandom — i.e., it captured the idea of the lonely, overlooked boy who acquires fabulous powers that make the world sit up and take notice. That’s the bit that draws boys in, but if they graduate from the comics of the 60s and 70s and grow up to be lifelong fans (or even sporadic enthusiasts), attentive readers will recognize that after the initial phase of “Hey, this is great! Look everyone! I’ve got super powers!!” the other shoe drops, and the recipient finds that with great powers comes great responsibility. I like to call this the “Oh, c^*%. I’ve got to save the world!” phase of the superhero relationship, in which our hero stalks about all broody and reluctant until struck by a much-needed ray of enlightenment. This concept was magnificently riffed on in the utterly fantastic Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which is a thoroughly engaging hybrid of the superhero supernova. It is — literally — a movie that makes fun of the concept of superheroes while embracing and making the concept itself fun. Which is almost a zen koan, really.

Of course, I’m oversimplifying. I recognize that some superheroes were created broody from the start. The Silver Surfer only assumed the mantle of his powers in order to try and save his dying race and/or bring back his one true love. And Batman’s psychoses, of course, sprang from having witnessed his own parents’ murder.

Other of the supers were created in a burst of patriotism, and we will soon be privy to the birth of Captain America as he steps to life from the narrow silhouette of his tubercular mortal host, Private Steve Rogers. Cap’s heroism was born in WWII and his history is an almost perverse echo of America’s own — he is steeped in the blood of America’s enemies, having fought in virtually all its wars, including the Cold War, as well as other wars that are too secret to reveal to our citizens outside the confines of Marvel Comics. If Wikileaks could reveal Cap’s history, I have no doubt we would be appalled and thrilled in equal parts.

What does all of this mean from the standpoint of symbols? In a very real way, what the public focuses on and recognizes, what draws our attention, is the same sort of packaging that corporations use to draw the public in. We recognize the Superman symbol in the same way we recognize the Nike swoosh. We recognize the Bat signal thrown up in the sky the same way we recognize the shadow of the Golden Arches. The logos of our favorite superheroes are no different than the logos of our favorite football teams, Catwoman’s costume indistinguishable from Louis Vuitton’s magical monogram.

What is amusing to me is that these symbols have stepped out of the pages of books and have taken on power in the real world. Though they were never intended as trademarks by their creators, they are among the most powerful marks ever known. Just try and use the Superman symbol for your business and see how fast you get sued by DC Comics and whatever movie studio is contemplating the next installment in the series. In truth, these symbols have now become enshrined in our collective consciousness to such an extent that they are at least as famous as any other mark.

If you doubt that this is so, then riddle me this. Other than the cross, what symbol is more famous than the Superman logo?

Jesters Do Oft Prove Prophets

Robert Scott Lawrence — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 02:42:37 +0000

In a world where corporations take umbrage at the slightest violation of their trademarks, where performing artists have been known to scream obscenities and throw shoes at preteens for downloading their favorite single on Kazaa, and where you can eat a Big Mac three times a day, but can’t call yourself Big Mac, comedy remains the one true fortress of intellectual property — where anyone with the requisite strength of character, sharp tongue, and penchant for trenchant commentary can take center stage and cross swords with all and sundry.

There is no man too majestic, no Santa too sacred, no idol too idolized that he cannot be skewered on the point of someone’s rapier wit. Some say a people is known by its politicians, but a fairer reading can usually be had by analyzing its humor. In the words of the incomprehensible Chaucer, “a man may seye full sooth in game and pley,” which — loosely translated –means “many a true word hath been spoken in jest.”

And as far as silly pop songs go, well, making fun of them is almost as sacrosanct as the tipping of sacred cows in upper Boise State.

Another Cinderella Story

Robert Scott Lawrence — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:56:48 +0000

My name is Bob Cinderella. I own Bob Cinderella’s Shoe Emporium down in Missou, just like my daddy owned it before me, and his daddy owned it before him. My friend Clyde McDonald owns the cafe down the street, McDonald’s Cafe, just like his daddy owned it before him, and his granddaddy before him. My neighbor across the way, Dick Ford, owns the Ford dealership — Ford’s Fords – even though he mostly sells Hyundais these days. And the mailman, Tim Nugent, plays in a honky-tonk band called Live Nugent Girls, which is a big hit with the college crowd up the road a ways.

Last week all of us got letters from some big city lawyer telling us to “cease and desist” our “flagrant infringement of trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights of named plaintiffs herein, etcetera etcetera etcetera.”

Turns out Disneyland claims I can’t use the name Cinderella if I own a store that sells slippers (even if I don’t stock any glass ones). McDonald’s says Clyde has to change the name of his cafe or they’ll make sure his kids can’t afford to go to college. Ford Motor Company doesn’t like that Dick Ford is “trading off their name” — even though it’s his name too, and he’s selling their cars for them. And some hippy rocker is threatening to sue my postman for “trade libel” because, according to him, there “can only be one” Nugent who plays a guitar and has long hair.

Like that’s some accomplishment no one else ever dreamed up, having long hair and playing the guitar.

Is it just me, or has the world gone crazy?

What does Disney care if there’s another Cinderella dancing off in the forest somewhere?

What does McDonald’s care about some small town cafe that was here 30 years before Ray Kroc even started his franchise?

What is Ford getting all high and mighty about after their stock was down so low they went begging after government money?

And what does some old crazy rocker care about, at all? If he needs money he can just go on television with Gary Busey. They can dance around naked for charity while some heavyset fella screams at Michael Jackson in the background.

Is this what the world has come to?

What do you think?

On Your Marks, Get Set, Go!

Robert Scott Lawrence — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 06:48:22 +0000

By now you’ve heard the news: This morning IHOP sued the makers of the movie “Hop” for trademark infringement. Then Apple sued IHOP for trademark infringement, asserting that the waffle house’s name was likely to confuse customers seeking to purchase its new iHop inter-platform app. Reacting to the uproar, McDonald’s entered the fray by filing suit against Apple on the seemingly spurious grounds that it owned the “Mc” trademark and all variants thereof, and that Apple’s use of “Mac” was confusingly similar and should be disallowed on the same basis that any use of the “Mc” phoneme, abbreviation, or preface was disallowed by the USPTO and similar foreign regulatory bodies. McDonald’s position, though consistent with what it has asserted in the past, raised the ire of the Scotsman Duncan MacLeod, of Highlander fame, who challenged Ronald McDonald to a duel near the ruins of the golden arches in Tokyo, announcing to the press that “There can only be one. And it’ll nae be yon gibbering clown.”

When asked to comment on this sad state of affairs, Silent Bob remained mum.

Disclaimer: None of the statements made in the post above are true in any way, shape or form. Any semblance of truth is entirely unintentional, and will be removed upon appropriate request. The Highlander logo is reprinted with the kind permission of Duncan MacLeod and the Clan MacLeod.

Who Is Your Lawyer? » Trademark

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