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Davis off of A&E, on to TLC 'Flip This House' creator sues network BY PETER HULL The Post and Courier Richard C. Davis, a Charleston real estate entrepreneur turned cable TV personality, is flipped off. The star and creator of A&E's "Flip This House" was replaced for the second season, which began airing Sunday evening. The good news, Davis said Tuesday, is that the show will return on a rival cable station this winter. All he has to do is think of a new name. "That's the easy part," he said. In the meantime, Davis and his James Island-based...

"House" flap -- A&E sued over reality show By Andrew WallensteinTue Jul 25, 12:26 AM ET A&E has been slapped with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit stemming from its reality series "Flip This House." Richard C. Davis, executive producer and star of "Flip," filed suit in the Court of Common Pleas in Charleston, S.C., against the cable network and production company Departure Films, citing fraud, breach of contract and seven other counts. The lawsuit hinges on A&E's decision to move ahead with a second season of "Flip" without Davis and his real estate company, Trademark Properties. The series follows Trademark staffers...

Trademark Properties Heads to TLC/Discovery, and Court? For now, the relationship between A &E and the real estate teams seems positive and productive. But tensions between the network and former Flip This House team leader, Richard C. Davis, led the Trademark Properties real estate guru to take his team to TLC (The Learning Channel), who showed him a little more "tender loving care" than A & E. An article in Charleston's March 31 The Post and Courier mentions "creative differences" between A & E and Mr. Davis. "Most importantly, he (Billy Campbell, Discovery Communications President) is not going to script...

LOS ANGELES — What happens when two Supernovas collide? Lawsuit. A Southern California rock band called Supernova has filed a complaint against Mark Burnett's CBS reality show Rock Star: Supernova, saying it had the name first. The complaint, filed June 27 in U.S. District Court, claiming unfair competition and trademark infringement, seeks to bar the show and its participants from using the Supernova name. It is also asks for compensatory and punitive damages. "Our clients believe they have the superior right on the mark Supernova," the band's attorney, John Mizhir, told the Associated Press Tuesday, adding that the band "has...

The team without a home or owner might also not have a name. According to a report in The New York Times on Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted a request for federal trademark registration on the name Washington Nationals to Bygone Sports last week. The Cincinnati-based company, which specializes in historic trademarks and sports apparel, applied for the trademark in September 2002.... If the case proceeds and the judge rules for Bygone Sports, baseball would then have to decide whether to rename the team, because it would not be able to sell apparel and other paraphernalia...

Appleinsider notes that Apple has filed for trademarks for two new phrases with the Hong Kong Trademark office. These include: iPod Hi-Fi - filed on September 20, 2005. Trademark description mirrored here iPod Boombox - filed June 13, 2005. Trademark description is mirrored here. Both products are classified in broad categories of computers, hardware, peripherals, etc... Appleinsider had previously claimed that an iPod Boombox and other iPod companion products were due from Apple at Macworld San Francisco. While the date may not have been accurate, these trademarks suggest these products are under consideration by Apple.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco lesbian motorcycle group has successfully trademarked the name "Dykes on Bikes" after proving the gay community does not find it derogatory. The U.S. Patent and Trademark office had denied the San Francisco group's applications for a federal trademark. But the office reversed itself after being convinced the once-offensive term "dyke" has now become associated with gay pride. The motorcycle club was founded nearly 30 years ago and became famous for leading San Francisco's annual gay pride parade. Vick Germany, president of the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent, also known as Dykes on Bikes, said...

A lesbian motorcycle group in San Francisco declared victory Thursday in their fight for a federal trademark for the name "Dykes on Bikes." The U.S. Patent and Trademark office twice rejected the group's application on the grounds the term "dyke" was offensive and derogatory. The office reversed itself after the group's lawyers appealed, submitting hundreds of pages of additional material that they said showed the slang word does not disparage lesbians. "The applicant came in at the last moment with a lot of evidence to show that the community did not consider it disparaging," said Lynne Beresford, a U.S. commissioner...

Windham, ME (December 8th, 2005) - Richard Dyke, Chairman and principal stockholder of Bushmaster Firearms, is pleased with a December 6 decision of the United States District Court in Maine granting summary judgment for Bushmaster in a trademark case brought by Colt Defense, LLC. In the case, Colt accused Bushmaster of infringing the “M4” trademark and the trade dress of the M4, both of which Colt claimed it owned to the exclusion of others in the industry. In addition to denying Colt’s infringement claims, the Court granted judgment for Bushmaster on its claim for cancellation of Colt’s federal trademark registration...

ASTORIA, Ore. - A judge has told Sam Buck that she can't call her coffee shop Sambuck's. The judge ruled the name violated the trademark of coffee giant Starbucks. But there is a silver lining for the small business owner. Buck won't have to pay Starbucks' legal fees, even though it could under the ruling by U.S. District Judge Ancer Haggerty. A Starbucks representative said the company never planned to ask Buck to cover its legal costs. "It's not about David and Goliath," said May Kulthol, manager of media relations for Starbucks Coffee. "We try to deal with these types...

Coffee shop’s name gets bucked from business Judge rules that Sambuck’s infringes on the Starbucks trademark; business must change name Thursday, December 01, 2005 The “Buck’s” has been washed from a sign that used to read “Sambuck’s” in downtown Astoria after the local company lost a lawsuit to coffee giant Starbucks this week. Astoria business owner Sam Buck must change the name of the downtown coffee shop she dubbed after herself, a federal district judge ruled Tuesday. She also must pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover the legal fees incurred by Starbucks Coffee following a legal battle...

Lesbian motorcycle brigade demands trademark for club name Tue Jul 26, 4:49 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - San Francisco will join lesbian motorcycle club "Dykes on Bikes" in its drive to have its name trademarked by the US patent office, a city official said. A measure slated for vote by city council's executive, the board of supervisors, Tuesday will generate a formal declaration urging the patent office to grant the bikers the trademark, which was earlier denied on the grounds the word "dyke" was offensive. "We expect it to pass," said Tomas Lee, a spokesman for Tom Amiano, a...

POJOAQUE— A lawsuit seeking to cancel trademarks on the name and logo of the NFL's Washington Redskins now hinges on a 38-year-old Cochiti Pueblo artist. "I'm doing this just because it's the right thing to do," said Mateo Romero as he worked adjacent to his Pojoaque studio— a two-car garage— Monday afternoon. Romero said there is "incredible pain" attached to Indian images used by sports teams such as the Redskins. More than 13 years ago, Romero, a painter, joined six other Indians in a petition to cancel six trademarks used by the Redskins. Initially the group was victorious before a...

Vic Germany thought registering a federal trademark for San Francisco's iconic Dykes on Bikes organization would be no problem. After all, the nonprofit lesbian motorcycle group has become internationally known for riding in the lead position at San Francisco's pride parade every year for nearly three decades. Instead, the group has spent a humiliating two years slogging through the swampland of trademark law, with no end in sight, said Germany, president of the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent, a.k.a. Dykes on Bikes. Twice, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected the Dykes' application, on the grounds that "dyke" is...

GENEVA - Most Americans have probably never heard of the World Intellectual Property Organization, headquartered here in Switzerland. Intellectual property is intangible property, such as software or music. Its value is very real. According to a study by Leonard Nakamura, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the total value of intellectual property in the United States is more than $5 trillion. That's more than a third of the value of the U.S. stock markets. Protected only by copyrights and patents, it is relatively easy to steal or counterfeit. (snip) WIPO and other international bodies are meeting to...

12/21/04 | U.S. Wins WTO Case Against EU Over Food Names WASHINGTON--United States Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick announced today that the United States had prevailed in its WTO case against the European Union regarding geographic food names known as "geographical indications." Geographical indications, or "GIs", are geographic names that have a particular association with a product, such as Idaho potatoes or Florida oranges. In its report issued today, the WTO panel agreed with the United States that Europe's regulation discriminates against U.S. products and producers and is therefore contrary to WTO rules. The panel also agreed with the United...

update Google scored a big legal win Wednesday when a federal judge ruled that its use of trademarks in keyword advertising is legal. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Google's motion to dismiss a trademark-infringement complaint brought by Geico. The insurance company had charged Google with violating its trademarks by using the word "Geico" to trigger rival ads in sponsored search results. Geico claimed the practice diluted its trademarks and caused consumer confusion. The judge said that "as a matter of law it is not trademark infringement to use trademarks as...

WASHINGTON - A poll of American Indians found that an overwhelming majority of them are not bothered by the name of the Washington Redskins (news). Only 9 percent of those polled said the name of the NFL team is "offensive," while 90 percent said it's acceptable, according to the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey, released Friday. Annenberg polled 768 Indians in every state except Hawaii and Alaska from Oct. 7, 2003, to Sept. 20, 2004. The survey found little disparity between men and women or young and old. However, 13 percent of Indians with college degrees said the...

This is a petition that has been filed with the Patent and Trademark Office by a concerned group of citizens to cancel the New York Times trademark "All the News That's Fit to Print": I.  Preliminary Statement The New York Times’ trademark "All The News That's Fit To Print," is subject to cancellation under § 14 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (The Lanham Act). The evidence that the New York Times does not publish “all the news that’s fit to print,” including an explicit admission by its Public Editor, is overwhelming.  Nonetheless, the New York Times continues to deceptively use the mark...

New York Times Trademarks Subject to CancellationI believe that New York Times trademark registration 2136993 and 0663495, i.e. "All The News That's Fit To Print," is subject to cancellation under § 14 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (The Lanham Act).  15 U.S.C. § 1064.I would appreciate it if I could get an opinion on this from a FReeper who is a member of the Bar (any state will do).Although registrations 2136993 and 0663495 are "incontestable" under § 15 of the Act, incontestable marks may still be cancelled at any time if they are "deceptive" as per § 2(a) of...