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There Can Be Only One... Lennon?
from the oh-please dept
ehrichweiss writes "Yoko Ono filed what is essentially a lawsuit with the Trademark and Trial Board of the US Patent & Trademark Office this week over a musician's ownership of the trademark of "Lennon", attempting to force the musician to give up her trademark. The musician, Lennon Murphy, has owned the trademark since 2003 and had sought permission from Arista records and Yoko to release under the name "Lennon" back in 2000. Yoko apparently waited until 2 days before the statute of limitations ran out to file the lawsuit."
The details on this are a bit murky, but the reality is that neither party looks good here. It seems rather silly that the musician tried to trademark "Lennon" in the first place. While it does seem odd that Yoko Ono waited until two days before the statute of limitations expired to file her complaints about the trademark, just the fact that people are arguing over whether or not a given name can be covered by trademark suggests how far lost our intellectual property laws have become. It's easy to make Yoko Ono look bad over this, but the fact that Murphy singer tried to trademark Lennon in the first place does seem problematic.
The details on this are a bit murky, but the reality is that neither party looks good here. It seems rather silly that the musician tried to trademark "Lennon" in the first place. While it does seem odd that Yoko Ono waited until two days before the statute of limitations expired to file her complaints about the trademark, just the fact that people are arguing over whether or not a given name can be covered by trademark suggests how far lost our intellectual property laws have become. It's easy to make Yoko Ono look bad over this, but the fact that Murphy singer tried to trademark Lennon in the first place does seem problematic.
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Defensive Trademark?
However, I don't think people should be able to trademark their given or surnames. My last name is trademarked by a major corporation--and I don't think it should be since it is a common last name.
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Re: Defensive Trademark?
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Re: Re: Defensive Trademark?
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Re: McLovin
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Re: Re: McLovin
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Can't trademark?
I thought you can't get a trademark on your own name?
This reminds me of Bob Dylan objecting to Apple's use of the name "Dylan" for a programming language it was developing back in the 1990s. I was surprised he had any kind of case, since it's not even his real name, he copied it from the same source Apple did--Dylan Thomas.
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Re:
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And it doesn't help when legitimizing the insanity by using the term "intellectual property". C'mon Mike, stop endorsing that baloney. You should know better.
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Does she sing like John or Yoko??
The only reason to do trademark the name has nothing to do with music it has to do with trying to profit.
I am filing today to trademark my name. I have to protect myself incase i ever become famous.
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the irony
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Re: the irony
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trademark
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The world revolves around...
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Names can be trademarked, but...
Which leads to the second point: you don't have an unqualified right to use your name in commerce. If your name already has secondary meaning for another person or entity and you are trying to operate in the same market, then you will rightfully be prevented from using your name for your goods or services.
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Re: Names can be trademarked, but...
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To get a SAG card, you can't use a name of a union actor (living or dead) and if you are a new and upcoming actor named Dustin Hoffman, you have to change your name to become a union member. You also can't appear on screen without being a union member. Not sure if that goes for game show contestants, who become temporary SAG members.
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Unfortunate.
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Oh, wait.. that would be mean spirited and pointless... never mind..
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