If this is granted what could be said? Marketing types aided and abetted by their legal brethren are endemic of modern life. It seems there are few to no boundaries for what they can try.
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I wonder if this is one of those…‘only could happen in America’ things.
As these acronyms are common and public in Australia, I expect it would be difficult to do similar under Australian trademark laws. Otherwise other common public (non-business specific terms) would have been registered for profit.
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[https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trade-marks/understanding-trade-marks](https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trade-marks/understanding-trade-marks)
Clear as ?
Noted ‘Surf’, ‘Apple’ etc may be part of trade marks or registered product names but we can still use them in every day language. Is it how the word or language is used that makes the distinction?
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See section 44 (second dot point), which would make it near impossible to trademark these in Australia…
If a company coined the acronyms, then yes it could be possible. Where they didn’t, impossibility prevails.
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Yes.
Plenty to take in looking thru the web resource.
Should they be complemented on how it has been Implemented?
Did ‘Alex’ pop up and offer to help you too?
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The acronyms are also common and public in the USA, and should the application be granted in the biggest market they would be unavoidable problems elsewhere. Sometime common sense and American law seem to coincide. Hopefully the trademark office clerks fell off their chairs laughing at the application, but strange things happen there.
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The most disgraceful episode in trademark litigation I have ever seen was the case of McDonalds taking a Malaysian restaurant to court over their business name, McCurry.
After an 8 year legal battle, the Malaysian High Court sent McDonalds packing, thus allowing the local curry restaurant to continue trading under their name and to expand.
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What about Vin & Sprit (the owner of the Absolut Vodka brand) claimed the name Absolute Swimwear infringed on its trademark and litigated over the course of several years against the Australian owner. Remember the owner being interviewed and saying that the legal processes were sending her and her small business bankrupt.
Not sure what the outcome was.
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Thank you for clearing that up Phil.
While I understand the need to protect brand names, I just don’t see how the Absolut Beach brand can be confused with the Absolut Vodka brand ‘in the mind of an average person’.
I would be more sympathetic to Vin & Spirit’s claims if it were protecting against another beverage.
This too should be filed in the ‘Only in America’ folder.
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You locked onto it when you added
because as everyone knows, Americans are exceptional in every way, nothing merely average about them 
Reality is trademark laws demand a holder prosecutes every infringement no matter how trivial or whether they really want to. If they do not they lose the copyright by non-prosecution so the trademark becomes public domain. The courts do what they do, but in reality are bystanders to the laws.
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Mine would be Ugg Boots…
Ugg boot has become a colloquial or generic term for a sheepskin ankle high (or higher) slipper. It could be argued that the trademarking of ‘ugg’, and its protestation by a US company that trademarked the term is also another poor example of inappropriate trademarking. More on this one can be found here:
To me it would be like trademarking the term hoover in the UK, when this is the colloquial or generic term for vacuum cleaner. Then the US Hoover company taking action against anyone who uses hoover in the media, reading books, advertising etc.
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Another dodgy practice to do with trade marks from IPAustralia’s trade mark update info:
Unofficial trade mark invoices
Would you pay ten times the price of a cup of coffee just for a third party to collect it for you?
Many Australian small business owners are targeted by unofficial third party organisations when it’s time to renew their trade mark. We often see people being charged hundreds, even thousands of dollars more than our fees.
We have a trademark from a business we had, and we received a letter asking for $1,555 to update one trade mark, and $620 for each successive one. This compares to $400 cost for the first and each successive one from IPAustralia.
Not a bad profit eh?
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Here is another one.
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I suppose that “g’day” will be next, although spelt with a capital it is also the title of a 90’s Finnish band album.
“Bula” what a great greeting. Add an extra L and it turns into ice cream, which is really nice too.
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An article regarding 300 new words being added to the Scrabble dictionary.
300 more words for US companies to apply for trademarks on them.
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Whilst walking past the telly my wife was watching yesterday, I noticed an infomercial for an exercise machine named “iWalk”.
Based on the post I made above regarding the McCurry restaurant in Malaysia, I suspect that iWalk might be hearing from Apple’s lawyers.
They might need to move fast.
Does Apple have automatic rights to “iHate”, “iCry”, “iThought” or “iAm”?
It leaves open a whole world of pain to typos in published documents.
iChoose to iGnore any more of such iRubbish!
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Macca’s has taken another trademark hit thanks to an Irish burger chain.
Another great win for the little bloke.
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They sure did notwin this one.
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