Trademark law is way to powerful and needs to be trimmed if not lopped off mostly to the ground.

First off the I ♥ N Y trademark seems to simple in its use of a heart. There has got to be prior art in this case somewhere as the city is 200 years old. Its likely a nonsense trademark.

Second here we have a case where the city of New York is probably (figuratively of course to any literary terrorists out there!) shooting themselves in the city foot. This is a great example of how culture spreads and modifies current slogans and ideas to be both original and creative about normal things/places/topics expressing their love and wonder (or disgust) about them.

The city of New York has lost. Period! In what way has this episode increased the cultural diversity (thus happiness) and tax revenues (thus viability) of the city? Its a double three stooges whack on the noggin and a painful noogie to the city. (again, figuratively of course to any literary terrorists out there!)

Thirdly where is a coffee cup in place of the ♥ not an original creation? Its probably Trademarkable in and of itself.

Some solution oriented proposals;

One of the great problems of trademark is that it is way to inexpensive to obtain a trademark enforced throughout the US. It costs $250-350 usd for a trademark that lasts 10 years at that time it must be renewed (for $400 usd) before a 6 month grace period is up.

It might be a good thing to cut the territory given up for such a low cost Trademark to just one city, county or state. This would have the effect of letting local culture not squashed out be every small mom and pop store or over reaching city legal department. This would solve the great majority of silly trademark disputes.

The fee for a nationwide Trademark would be much larger maybe (at least) ~3000 per year and much much greater (say +3 million/year) if the trademark itself was some corporate attempt to limit the legitimate spread of popular culture. The best example are the Trademarks on Disney characters like Micky Mouse, Batman or Superman. No way anyone cannot recognize these characters a part of American Culture! (have to think about the cultural significants of a trademark and its impact on society and come up with some formula…)

It was once common law that if any concept/idea/character/etc became a ?Household word? it became a legitimate part of American Culture and thus non trademarkable nor copyrightable. Can one use in a sentence the characters of any comic to label someone’s behavior? Example ?Wow! It felt like Superman entered the room when so and so made the scene.?

Another of the great problems of Trademark law is that it WAY to easy to threaten anyone indiscriminately. A good possible solution is to force the accuser/plaintiff to put up a bond that covers all legal fees from both sides just for even sending out a strongly worded demand asking for monetary settlement. It has to hurt enough to be a restraint on stupid lawsuits and idiotic trolling threat letters.

Reactionary,

That Anonymous Coward. Is only a matter of time that the Stop and frisk cops start looking for trademark violations on tattoos? Think of the extra revenue a ?Trademark Ticket? plus further legal charges bring in to an obviously broke city because they threw out all the clever small coffee shops?