I’m not quite sure how The Politico is going to get away with this.
The College Politico has received a cease-and-desist letter from lawyers for Politico, demanding that he stop using the word “Politico” in his name — and that he give them control of his domain.
Stephen Gutkowski, the operator of the domain, has broken several stories, including one that proved that Obama=Hitler signs were being wielded by Lyndon LaRouche supporters.
The Politico’s case seems to rest on the “likelihood of confusion” standard as they claim it’s likely that people who come across Gutkowski’s site might think they were coming across a site affiliated with The Politico.
I think that’s a pretty weak claim. The College Politico looks nothing like The Policito in design or content. It specifically claims a slant to the right and does not purport to be a straight news site in any way. “Politico” is also a commonly-used word and Gutkowski seems to be using the word as the dictionary defines it.
It seems to me that if The Politico’s claim is granted, the court would set a precedent for other people to claim ownership of other common English words. In which case, I’m going to go ahead and grab “blog” and “times”, and maybe “the”.
Of course, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to play one in the blogosphere. However, my friend Ron Coleman is, and what’s more, he’s an expert in trademarks and copyrights, so he ought to know a thing or three about the “likelihood of confusion”. I’d definitely be interested in his take on The Politico’s claim.
(via Dan Riehl)
Sorry, Jimmie, I already trademarked “the”. I went ahead and grabbed “hot” and “chick”, too, since I hear them so often.
Well, that’s understandable, then. I bet you hear them a lot!
[...] UPDATE: I want to make sure that I say thank you to everyone who has posted about this and is supporting me… here is the list so far (I’ll update it if more people jump in): Patterico Ace of Spades HQ Instapundit HotAir Vermontaigne Riehl World View Instapundit (making a point about the word pundit) Stop the ACLU Freedom & Liberty The Sundries Shack [...]
From what I’ve been through and read, words (like a company name) can be trademarked. Copyright is totally different.
http://www.lawmart.com/searches/difference.htm
Okay, Jimmie, you got your wish! Thanks for axing.
Thank you, Ron! I have my own ideas on it, but I’d much rather hear from a real live brainy expert.
Oh, well, then I will try to find you one of them, too…
This post will probably be below the fold before anyone sees it, which is too bad. I support you on this completely. Names really can’t be copyrighted. Put it into a logo, and yes, it becomes property. Legally, they can now, but we’re running out of names. Think about it, about a century ago, George Eastman tried to find a word that didn’t mean anything in any language known to the Western World. It was really hard, and he came up with ‘kodak’. At a certain point, everything becomes so globalized and corporate names are registered in so many countries, that overlap has to happen a lot. The basis on the infringement should be on the logos, because that’s the only thing we can keep separate. And obviously, you have to be able to register multiple logos for cultural reasons. But they need to look similar. But that word ’similar’ is surely a cesspool of litigation, isn’t it?