Property, intangible

Steve Saleen’s SMS 460 Steve Saleen makes high performance cars. He sold Saleen, Inc. in 2003 and left the company altogether in 2007. In 2008 Steve Saleen started a new company, Steve Saleen’s SMS Supercars. Saleen, Inc’s assets, including the right to use “Saleen” for superchargers, aftermarket parts and high-performance vehicles, was sold to MJ… Continue reading

When a case is captioned Protech Diamond Tools, Incorporation v. Protech Diamond Tool Inc., you know that there’s a fight about who owns a mark. Protech Diamond Tool is actually the second named defendant, but you get the idea. There are at least three different “Protech” entities mentioned in the suit.* The first is non-party… Continue reading

(Joseph Abboud, 2005) In 2000, Joseph Abboud sold at least the trademarks for “Joseph Abboud” to his former company, JA Apparel Corp. Others have blogged on the Second Circuit’s reversal of the district court decision that had stopped menswear designer Joseph Abboud from using his own name to promote a new line of clothing he… Continue reading

The Netflix Prize is a million dollar award for “substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to love a movie based on their movie preferences.” It’s now being reported that a team has met the requirements for winning the million dollars, but for a waiting period of 30 days allowing… Continue reading

At least the insurance company is coughing up something on the advertising injury clause. Not sure how much, “terms of the settlement were filed under seal so Mattel does not obtain ‘any strategic advantage through information obtained from the settlement agreement – including, but not limited to, information regarding the funding of MGA’s defense.’” (the… Continue reading

The TTAB recently decided a case about the registrability of a “chirp” made by Motorola phones. Motorola filed an application to register “an electronic chirp consisting of a tone at 1800 Hz played at a cadence of 24 milliseconds ON, 24 ms OFF, 24 ms ON, 24 ms OFF, 48 ms ON.” Nextel Communications opposed… Continue reading

Terra Sul Corp. a/k/a Churrascaria Boi Na Brasa v. Boi Na Braza, Inc. is one of those “uh oh” cases. It’s a fairly routine examination of a petitioner’s first use date to determine who is senior user of the mark. The “uh oh” is a theory that the mark, when transferred from the sole proprietor… Continue reading

It pays to read the statute sometimes. If the statute says “the applicant shall file in the Patent and Trademark Office . . . ,” having the former applicant file it isn’t going to work. The former applicant signed the document before it assigned the mark, but then filed the document after the assignment to… Continue reading

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Kozinski, Paez and Tallman) has summarily denied MGA Entertainment’s motion for a stay pending appeal: “MGA Entertainment, Inc., MGA Entertainment HK Ltd. and Isaac Larian’s (‘MGA’s’) motion for a stay pending appeal is denied. MGA has not met the prevailing standard to show a substantial likelihood of… Continue reading

Opportunity Knocks, Inc. d/b/a Cartoonmaps.com makes cartoon maps. Beginning in 2006, Brandon and Bridgette Maxwell paid over $35,000 for Opportunity Knocks to help them create graphical city maps for Cheyenne, Wyoming, Crested Butte, Colorado and Telluride, Colorado. Bridgette Maxwell quit her job to focus on the graphic map business. In 2008, Opportunity Knocks found that… Continue reading