Can You Trademark The Price Of Something?
from the trademark-law-at-work dept
It looks like BarnesAndNoble.com has lost out on their wish to have a trademark suit against them dismissed. The judge has ruled against a summary judgment. What's interesting here is that the case concerns whether or not BN can make use of the phrase "Half Price Books." That shouldn't sound like a problem, except that there's a company named HalfPriceBooks.com, and they're claiming they own the trademark on "Half Price Books" and BN's use of it is diluting their brand. This seems like a stretch. "Half price books" is obviously descriptive, and not at all designed to have people confused that BN is somehow associated with HPB. In fact, HPB should be so lucky as to have people at BN thinking they're really shopping at HPB. It would probably do them some good. Have I mentioned my plan to trademark "One Day Sale!"? I should be able to clean up with lawsuits like the one here if HPB wins.
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Shop there a lot
They offer free coffee (unlike the local Borders and Barnes and Nobles stores that sell $4 cups of coffee) and have a huge selection of new and used books, magazines, software, music and movies all priced at half of suggested retail - or less.
When I need a book, the first place I look is HPB before I begin shopping online, not only will I get it immediately, but I'll get it cheaper and not pay for shipping.
They even sell "books by the yard", so if you want to look like a well educated lawyer/doctor/etc., you can purchase yards of similarly sized books to fill up bookcases.
While I don't agree that "Half Price Books" is really a good trademark, the company itself is definately not something that should be cast aside or ignored.
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here here!
when I was in Texas (born, raised and educated) I used to frequent this store all too much... now in California I'm lucky to have something almost as nice in Mountain View...
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BN vs. Half Price Books
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