Dear Trademark Filers: You Cannot Get Trademarks Based On Barack Obama's Name
from the president-elect-or-opportunity? dept
With the election of Barack Obama last week, some observers have noted the not-surprising rush by folks over the past few months to try to file for trademarks built off of Obama's name, including Barack Star, Obama -- O Baby! and (my favorite) Pet Barack (a play on the old "pet rock"). Of course, the USPTO has shot all of these down as not actually being approved by the President-Elect, while noting that any products using such trademarks would likely confuse people into believing they were approved by him.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: barack obama, trademark
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Omg
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
double standard?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: double standard?
In this case, people are filing for trademarks by basing the object of the filing on the name of the President-Elect. The Patent Office, NOT the President-Elect, rejected the requests because the whole POINT to trademark law is a consumer protection. As they noted, it would be too easy for people to think the President-Elect endorsed the products because his rather uncommon name was part of their trademark.
In the MLK case, an important historical icon's name and image were being put on merchandise and the family wanted to stop that, either because they weren't "getting a cut" (why should they?) or because they feel it was disrespectful. There is an intangible threshold of when you can and can't do that sort of thing.
Take Jesus Christ for example. The majority of scholars agree that Jesus was a real person (NOTE: This does NOT mean they believe he was the Son of God). You don't see various churches scrambling over people that make What Would Jesus Do bracelets and bumper stickers or the "Buddy Christ" (ala Dogma) t-shirts. If they tried, it would get slapped down as well.
Or another example, Napolean Bonapart. You can throw that image on anything and sell it and not have to worry about it. It isn't like France will come and sue you succesfully.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Excellent comment A/C #3
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Trademark
Great name, but it will be denied, like all the rest.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Barack Obama is a racial-minority individual, and in his heart and mind he inevitably does not endorse hate crimes committed by George W. Bush.
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
______________________
I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.” Oh wait—off the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]