Author To Chobani: I Own The Word 'How'
from the how-do-you-figure? dept
It's amazing what fun we can have when we really get a culture of permission going. Trademark law, ostensibly built around the idea of consumer protection when it comes to branding, has since devolved into a platform where certain entities think they can essentially own certain common words and phrases, such as "emergency essentials", or "footlong", or "monster." However, once you've opened the door to that kind of relatively minor insanity, it lets the really crazy monsters through.
Let's take, for instance, the word "how." You can't own "how", right? Well, according to the lawsuit of Dov Seidman, who portends to be something called a "corporate virtue advisor", you damn well can.
In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, Dov Seidman, author of "HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything," says how Chobani is using "how" in its current marketing campaign is a blatant rip-off. Seidman and his company, LRN, "whose business is based on promoting ethical corporate behavior, own federal trademark registrations for word and mark HOW," the suit says.Let's just drive this point home, shall we? A purveyor of business ethics is suing Chobani, a company that makes Greek yogurt, because they used the word "how" in a marketing campaign. Just let that sink in for a moment. The fight is over a single word, not some multi-word phrase. Hell, it's over a single syllable. And customer confusion is difficult to imagine, given that one side of the fight is a guy that talks to companies about who-knows-what and the other, you know, makes yogurt. So, how is this suit even possible? Well, it apparently falls upon a time when Chobani tweeted at Seidman to flatter and admire him.
The company has since claimed the campaign is purely coincidental, but Seidman noted that he got a Twitter message from Chobani on January 29 saying, "Thanks for inspiring the world to care about 'how.' Can you help inspire the food industry, too?" The "very next day," the suit says, the company "launched Chobani's new branding platform - which employs 'HOW' in precisely the same manner as plaintiffs employ their HOW marks: as a noun connoting responsible and ethical corporate behaviors."Here's the tweet:
@DovSeidman Thanks for inspiring the world to care about "how." Can you help inspire the food industry, too? http://t.co/erVULG89Hp
— Chobani (@Chobani) January 29, 2014
Chobani is on record stating that this whole thing is exceptionally silly. One would hope a court will throw this out the moment it hits a bench. And how!
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Filed Under: dov seidman, how, likelihood of confusion, trademark, yogurt
Companies: chobani
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How did we become a society that allows such actions to happen?
How did we completely fuck up IP law?
How did things come to this?
HOW?!
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Re:
I'M GON' SUE YA SO GOOOOD
Govern yourself accordingly.
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Re:
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Re: Re: the 1970s
And then they became lawyers (because lawyers like to argue) and those lawyers became judges and the ones who were left without a lawyer job or judge job decided they should sue somebody because there were too few dope heads left to argue with?
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Re: Re: Re: the 1970s
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Re: I know HOW and WHY
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Because our legal system lets anyone sue anyone else for anything, with no recourse if their case has no merit.
Instead of throwing this case out, a judge should say it's absurd, suspend or disbar the lawyer, and fine the company and the lawyer. Since the yogurt company didn't do anything to deserve money, the fine should go to a legal defense fund.
Then the judge should make sure to set a precedent so anyone who tries to sue over a common word will get a smackdown.
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On the third hand (I was born near a leaky nuclear power plant) who follows a freaking yogurt company on Twitter in the first place?
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...
but I'd better check first. It might be trademarked.
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Re: "Why"???
Yes, there seem to be a excess of jackasses out there and some are on the bench. Any judge that doesn't immediately dismiss the suit is not competent to be a judge.
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I'm mildly impressed
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Re: the total jerk
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Re: Re: the total jerk
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I suspect the good dr has someHOW managed to sully his professional reputation.
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http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=4210276&caseType=US_REGISTRATION_NO&searchType=statusS earch
http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=4388331&caseType=US_REGISTRATION_NO&searchType=status Search
However. I did notice that the trademark is all uppercase.
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Re:
I didn't. From the links you kindly provided:
I'm reading "without claim to any particular font style, size, or color."
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Question:
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Take about BS trademarks and this is one that should never have been given.
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Then I am going to trademark APPROVED and DENIED
I may consider licensing if asked nicely but I may not.
That should take care of all this patent and trademark nonsense that's been flying around recently.
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Trolling... we hope
I also wonder what kind of drugs the people at USPTO were smoking when they approved a trademark on "HOW"
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Re: Trolling... we hope
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Re:
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So this is HOW civilization ends....
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Portends?
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Re: Portends?
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Re: Re: Portends?
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I dunno, it may have been used in the sense of "implying that corporate virtue advisors are an actual thing, which does not seem like a good sign".
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This might be explained by...
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Just when you thought you heard it all.
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The Trademark Should Have Been Denied?
I know, because Hollywood told me so.
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