Trademarks run amok

Mother Jones has a very amusing piece that details some IP abuses- entitled Intellectual Property Run Amok. I agree with many of them, however a few (such as gene patents) are ones that are not too "egregious." Here are the ones that involve trademarks, along with my commentary on each one.

NINETY-ONE pending trademarks bear Donald Trump’s name, including “Donald J. Trump the Fragrance” and “Trump’s Golden Lager.” He failed to trademark the phrase “You're fired.”

Anyone even remotely familiar with Mr. Trump will know that he is quite proud of his name and image. He names everything he owns something "Trump"- "Trump Tower," "Trump Taj Majal," etc. By filing all of these trademarks, he is blocking others from using similar marks. Many large entities with famous marks do so. Often these applications go abandoned, but they still keep trademark options open as business develops. For example, Microsoft has 4 applications (3 now abandoned) for use with food:

78146798
75893897
75488071
75893292

Basically I don't think Trump is abusing anything here. I did learn about an amusing Trump trademark issue during my research for this piece- I'll write about it shortly.

HUEY NEWTON’S widow is trademarking the phrase “Burn, Baby, Burn” for use as a BBQ sauce slogan.

Why is this an abuse? Perhaps because the phrase was used historically, but it is still open for use by others. And why not someone associated with the civil rights movement?

IN THE LATEST ROUND of a 13-year battle over the title “Surf City USA,” Huntington Beach, Calif., filed for a trademark last year. A state senator from Santa Cruz retorted, “You can’t trademark a state of mind” and proposed a Senate resolution declaring his city to be the real Surf City.

Not sure if this abuse, it's just comical to watch surf towns have a public pissing contest.

“SENSORY TRADEMARKS” include a duck quacking (AFLAC), a lion roaring (MGM), yodelling (Yahoo!), giggling (Pillsbury), and a “pre-programmed rotating sequence of a plurality of high intensity columns of light projected into the sky to locate a source at the base thereof” (Ballantyne of Omaha).

This is not really abuse of trademarks. How many people associate Gilbert Godfried's quacking duck with Aflac? (Yes, Gilbert does the quacking for those ads). I myself do, so the sound does act as a trademark- it identifies a source of goods or services. The same thing with the roaring lion. I imagine if you went to see a movie by Dreamworks, and hear a lion roar when viewing the name Dreamworks, you would immediately think of MGM- thus it functions as a trademark. NBC also has a trademark for the chime sound they play. Not all sound trademarks are approved, in fact Harley Davidson recently lost a trademark battle to protect the sound of the Harley. They argued that the sound was so tied to Harleys that it was a trademark, and the Trademark Office said it was just a sound the engine made- all motorcycles make loud noises. While I see Harley's point of view, they shouldn't have won the battle.