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Category Archives: Trademark
Ordinarily, trademarks are a good thing. They help consumers identify the quality of products and services just by looking for a particular brand name or image. They help companies develop loyalty, ensuring that when consumers shop for a particular item, the consumers look for the company’s trademark. Sometimes, though, trademarks are too successful. When trademarks become too well-known, they become a part of the language. They become what is known as a genericized trademark because they have become generic. While this is a sign that a company’s trademark has been so successful that it has become ubiquitous, this also generally means that a company will lose its trademark protections because the trademark is so widespread as to no longer clearly identify the business behind the goods. Many phrases we now use in English were once trademarks but became genericized. Examples include the following: Johnson & Johnson’s “Band-Aids” B.F. Goodrich’s term…
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High-tech smartphone provider Research in Motion (“RIMM”) finds itself in court again over an acronym that it wants to use for one of its new services. RIMM has been using the acronym “BBM” to promote its BlackBerry Messenger service. BBM, however, runs afoul of BBM Canada which is a Canadian broadcasting organization. RIMM claims that the two companies should both be allowed to use the trademark, since they operate in two different industries, but do consumers know the difference? The evidence from BBM Canada suggests that they do not. BBM Canada representatives said that their employees are being mistaken for RIMM employees and that people have been calling BBM Canada member companies asking for support related to RIMM’s Messenger service. A BBM Canada representative wonders how RIMM would react if BBM Canada started calling its handheld devices “BlackBerrys.” This is the second time in recent memory that RIMM may have…
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Usually when Apple and China are in the news, it is Apple that is the victim. Apple has aggressively fought against piracy in the country, which costs the company billions of dollars. Several stores even exist in China that are complete knock-offs of Apple stores, and the Chinese government has only closed a handful of them. Due to a recent Chinese court decision, though, Apple may find itself having to pay out for its own infringement activities. Earlier in December, a Chinese court ruled against Apple in a trademark case. Since last fall, Apple has been selling its popular iPad tablets in China. The problem was that another Chinese company had trademarked the term “iPad” several years before. That company is Proview, which trademarked “iPad” in Taiwan in 2000 and in mainland China in 2001. Apple entered into a trademark transfer agreement with Proview Taiwan and claimed it should apply…
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Posted in Intellectual Property, Trademark
Tagged apple, ipad, los angeles business litigation attorney, Trademark
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