Nuevo Juan Valdez

Here's an amusing story that puts a human face on trademarks: 'Juan Valdez' Is Hanging Up His Poncho.

I didn't realize it, but Carlos Sanchez has been playing Mr. Valdez since 1969. I just figured they kept finding similar actors to play the guy. The role itself originated with another gentleman in 1959.

Although I doubt that the Colombian coffee cartel has a registered trademark for Mr. Sanchez's visage, I certainly suspect they have established worldwide common law rights to the man.

There's another example of this in the Columbia Pictures logo, which has a woman holding a torch. Over the years the general layout has remained similar, however the actual representation of the woman holding the torch has changed- including the look of the woman. Currently it is modeled after Jenny Joseph (and not Annette Benning as commonly thought). More info at Wikipedia.

Goodbye Mr. Sanchez, and we certainly look forward to your mustached replacement. Hopefully there's no big change like the Brawny Man recently endured.

Trademark for pizza smells?

Well, I'm not too sure about Lithuanian trademark law, but there's an interesting story regarding one outfits attempt to trademark the smell of their pizza. I've written previously about tastes and smells in trademarks. It is possible to get marks for scents and smells, but it generally needs to be something that everyone can readily identify, and there there is no doubt as to the particular scent. An example is grass. One can have fresh cut grass smell, the smell of hay, the smell of clover, rotting grass, burning grass, etc. One does not immediately know the proper scent.

That is where our Lithuanian pizza people may have problems: what type of pizza do we smell? White pizza? Hawaiian style (with ham and pineapple)? Wood oven pizza from NY? Chicago style pizza? Obviously there are many different scents and flavors of pizza, so one cannot immediately describe the pizza smell in a general manner to the public at large.

Another problem our pizza guys may have is that the smell of pizza is descriptive. You cannot have a trademark that is merely descriptive of the underlying goods or services, and I think that the smell of pizza immediately describes the goods. Now if for some reason their pizza smelled like eggs, and everyone identified that only with that particular pizzeria, then they may have an argument. Secondary meaning is a showing that your particular mark, even if descriptive, is attached and associated with your goods or services. An example could be "Jiffy Lube." It's quite clear what that means, but because of their advertising, everyone knows the mark and the services.

I have a sore spot for pizza myself, hence my distaste for this trademark attempt. I'm from NY, and spent 2.5 years working in a pizzeria in college...

Ivana Trump trademark update

I've been a reader of the website The Smoking Gun for a long time, and I told them about the Ivana Trump trademark dispute. They published a story on this, and were nice enough to credit this blog.

TSG also included an update to the trademark opposition. Ivana has now filed an answer to Donald's notice of opposition. In it, Ivana rejects or denies much of the allegations made by Donald in his trademark opposition filing. Ivana also states that Donald is barred for bringing the opposition for several reasons:

1- Fails to state a claim that can be adressed by the USPTO
2- The filing is barred by laches (which means Donald waited too long to tell Ivana to not use the mark, presumably because Ivana's been using it for awhile and Donald should know about that)
3- Waiver, estoppel, and unclean hands.

The waiver and estoppel defenses mean that Donald has not enforced this before against Ivana, so he cannot raise the issue now. Unclean hands implies that Donlad has done something unethical relating to the case.

I'm interested to see where this all goes, and will keep checking the USPTO for updated status.