Filed under: Digital Cameras, HDTV

You wouldn’t think that anyone in the market for a $3,000 handheld camera capable of shooting 3K HD at 100MB/s would somehow get confused enough to end up with a medicore LG plasma TV, but it seems like the folks at RED are worried — the company’s lawyers are preparing an opposition to LG’s filing for the “Scarlet” trademark, and they’ve filed for their own mark. It looks like RED is getting pretty serious about protecting its marks — president Jim Jannard is politely asking RED fans to include a trademark disclaimer when they post about the company’s products, and he says that the proceedings against LG are “just the tip of the iceberg.” Honestly, we think RED’s going to have a tough time selling a judge on the likelihood of confusion between a consumer-oriented HDTV and a decidedly pro-grade camera, but we’ve been surprised in the past — we’ll see how this one plays out.

Read - Jim Jannard forum post
Read - Request for extension of time to file opposition

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Filed under: Cellphones

Well, would you look at that — our good friend Deutsche Telekom seems to have lost a lawsuit it filed against rival European wireless carrier Telia over its use of the color magenta in its logo. The Danish Eastern Regional High Court today ruled that Telia and DT don’t compete directly in the Danish market and that Telia isn’t using the same magenta shade, leading the court to overturn an injunction DT sought against Telia’s use of the color. On top of that, the court further ruled that Deutsche Telekom has to fork over 1.5M kroner ($316,188) in court costs and attorneys’ fees to Telia, which probably stings a little more than having to share a color. Of course, now that magenta is the People’s Color, maybe DT should look into playing a little nicer, don’t you think?

[Thanks, Andreas]

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Quick, what’s the best way to dress up an otherwise dry piece on how companies can register non-traditional trademarks? If you answered “mention Apple and the iPod,” you’re the big winner — and you’ve gotten yourself published in the Wall Street Journal. We’ll be the first to admit that Apple’s January registration of the three-dimensional design of the iPod strains credulity, but the simple fact is that non-traditional trademarks have been around for a while now — we seem to remember a little kerfuffle regarding magenta recently, but we can’t quite recall the exact details. Similarly, Nokia trademarked the 12 notes of its default ringtone back in September (even though they’re part of a larger piece written in 1902 called “Gran Vals”), NBC has a mark on its ding-ding-ding station ID, and Coca-Cola has registrations for basically every bottle design it sells. Still, you can bet Apple legal threw quite a pizza party when this mark was approved — and we can only imagine the kind of buttoned-down corporate lawyer jam that’ll go down if the company succeeds in getting a mark on the design of the iPhone, which it’s currently applied for. Hope you’re ready for some more funktastic control layouts.

Read - WSJ article
Read - Apple iPod design trademark

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/Apple_vs_NYC_What_s_really_going_on’;So you might have heard that Apple and New York City are currently in a little scuffle over the city’s apple-shaped GreeNYC logo — NYC wants to trademark the logo, and Apple would prefer that didn’t happen. The story’s gotten pretty wild out there, and while it’s not worth a full-blown Know Your Rights, we thought we’d try and clear up what’s happening, since, you know, +10 lawyer.

Unlike all those previous Apple trademark disputes, this isn’t a true lawsuit, and Apple hasn’t sued anyone — the city of New York has filed a trademark application for the GreeNYC apple-shaped logo with the Patent and Trademark Office, and Apple has filed its opposition to that application. That’s an important part of the trademark registration process, actually: every single trademark application has to go through a 30-day opposition period during which interested third parties can raise their objections. We’d say it’s pretty obvious that Apple’s got an interest in other apple-shaped trademarks, so it’s not particularly surprising that it’s taking the first available opportunity to speak up about this one.

After the trademark applicant responds to the objection in writing (what some people have been wrongly calling NYC’s “counterclaim”), the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board gathers evidence and makes a decision. We’d almost be willing to bet that never happens, though — after all the lawyers are done strutting around and promising victory, it’s likely that Apple and NYC simply come to an amicable licensing agreement. Bottom line? This is exactly how the system is supposed to work, and Apple is just protecting its billion-dollar brand as best it can — thousands of these oppositions are filed by all sorts of companies each year. We know, not very fun at all — anyone care to start a Jobs vs. Bloomberg slapboxing petition?

Disclaimer: Nilay’s a lawyer and a formidable slapboxer, but he’s not your lawyer, and none of this is legal advice or analysis.

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And you thought Microsoft had trouble with piracy in Asia. Just look at what Egypt is doing to the new Windows… potato chips. Now with real Ballmer batter!

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Filed under: Cellphones

Garmin probably thought getting into the mobile phone game would just be smooth sailing, but it looks like they’ve made a deadly miscalculation. Okay, that might be over-dramatizing the situation, but the PND-maker is facing a new lawsuit over its upcoming 3G wonder-device, the Nuvifone. Apparently, internet telephone provider Nuvio Corp. feels that Garmin has crossed trademark boundaries just a smidge, alleging the nav company is stepping all over its good name. “Our customers commonly refer to our service as the Nuvio phone,” said Jason P. Talley, the company’s CEO. Not only is the provider calling for a cease-and-desist on the use of “Nuvifone,” but it also wants kickbacks for past infringement, and termination of the word “Nuvi” on any device made by Garmin. Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner says the company has been using the Nuvi name since early 2006 in North America, and earlier in Europe. He went on to add that they don’t discuss pending litigation — though we understand to friends and family he was like, “Pfft, whatever.”

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It’s no secret that Apple Legal is, ah, aggressive when it comes to protecting its various fruit-flavored intellectual property, but a company called BlueAir just filed a lawsuit accusing Apple’s lawyers of outright harassment over BlueAir’s AirPOD air purifier, pictured at right. Seems BlueAir has been trying to register a trademark on the product, and instead of filing an opposition with the USPTO based on consumer confusion with the iPod, Apple’s attorneys have just been sending BlueAir angry letters and threatening massive legal fees. Of course, that’s pretty much what lawyers do, but BlueAir’s asked the court to step in and rule definitively on the subject before pursuing their trademark application any further. Seeing how protective Apple’s been of the “-pod” suffix in the past, that could lead to some interesting rulings — we’ll be keeping an eye on this one for sure.

Disclaimer: Although Nilay is an attorney, super guy, and snappy dresser, he’s not your attorney, and this post is not legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.

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Filed under: Displays

The trademarking sleuths over at Trademork have themselves another doozy. Samsung Electronics just filed a trademark on “SyncPaper” in relation to “electronic ink display devices; computers; MP3 players; mobile telephones; DMB receivers” and more. The “Paper” part of the trademark seems relatively straightforward given that Samsung was showing off a 40-inch E Ink Vizplex display back in May in addition to a bevy of flexible displays over the years. Now if only we could figure out what “Sync” was referring to. A wireless e-book reader like the Kindle perhaps? Samsung — the number 1 CE brand globally — is conspicuously absent from the burgeoning e-book reader market after all. What do you think oh gentle, omniscient reader?

[Via Trademork]

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Filed under: Gaming

We know tons of aging Dreamcast fans’ hearts skipped a beat today — us included — when Sega made a rustle with the brand name at the USPTO. But as it turns out, the recently filed trademark application is just a renewal on brand, and doesn’t express any intentions to do another Dreamcast console. In fact, Sega further explained to GameDaily, rather flatly we might add, that they have “no plans to get back into the console business.” We know, we’re already reaching for the Zoloft, too, but did anyone really think Sega wanted to make one last go of game consoles when even mega-players like Sony can’t keep it together?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Know Your Rights is Engadget’s new technology law series, written by our own totally punk copyright attorney Nilay Patel. In it we’ll try to answer some fundamental tech-law questions to help you stay out of trouble in this brave new world. Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not meant as legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.

Hey, does T-Mobile really own magenta? I was just about to redesign my blog, and that was going to be the main color.

Really? Maybe T-Mo should sue you.

Come on, I’ve been hearing this everywhere. 1265 Diggs can’t be wrong.

Well, they’re not wrong, they’re just less than right. T-Mobile’s disclaimers certainly do say that “the magenta color” is a T-Mobile trademark.

So there you go! That’s so stupid! The system is broken! Everyone is corrupt! How can corporation own a color?! I’ve already skipped down and begun flaming!

Chill out, Sparky. T-Mobile doesn’t “own” anything here, least of all a color. That’s the part everyone seems to have missed. T-Mobile has what appears to be a German trademark on that specific magenta color (RAL 4010, specifically) as it relates to their branding, but that doesn’t really affect the average consumer.

Besides, this isn’t some radical new development. Lot of other companies have registered color trademarks — Owens-Corning has a trademark on the use of pink for insulation, Tiffany & Co. has a trademark on that certain blue color it uses for jewelry boxes, and UPS has a trademark on brown. Interesting you haven’t seen UPS suing Microsoft over that itty-bitty Zune thing, no?

Continue reading Know Your Rights: Does T-Mobile really own magenta?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Although the casual HDTV fan may not be entirely familiar with NuVision’s “High Definition Living” trademark, a recently filed lawsuit is likely to bring you up to speed. The Arizona-based display maker purports that its slogan has been in use since the company’s inception in 2005, and now that it has finally received registration of the mark this month, it’s targeting Panasonic for infringement. If you’ll recall, Panny launched its “Living in High Definition” program earlier this year, which NuVision has taken serious issue with. According to its CEO, Panasonic has “knowingly and willfully infringed upon its mark,” and another company exec even stated that the alleged culprit “believes that it is so large that the law does not apply to it and that it can copy [NuVision’s] trademark with impunity.” And considering that the aforementioned program is slated to run until March of next year, we highly doubt Panasonic is anxious to just ditch the slogan and move on.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Mirroring the premature trademark dispute surrounding the launch of the Cisco iPhone in the US, Apple’s Canadian launch of its respective iPhone could be delayed due to a trademark dispute with a product that shares the same name as Apple’s gadget. Comwave Telecom in Toronto owns the trademark rights to the name “iPhone” in Canada for use on its VoIP products and services, and has filed a complaint with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office over Apple’s application for the trademark rights of the name for its future Canadian version of the iPhone. Sounds like a case of how much Apple is willing to pay, or how long they’re willing to delay.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops

For all you conspiracy buffs out there, you can now add a new chapter to your massive clip-book of JFK magic-bullet theories, alien abduction reports, and shape-shifting reptilian overlord photos. According to Trademork, a gentleman named David Liu — who is apparently legal counsel for Google, Inc. — has filed to protect the trademark “Google PC.” The plot thickens when you learn that the address listed in the filing is 6363 Wilshire Blvd., which incidentally happens to be a five-story building in California with the word “Google” visible in the bottom floor window (which looks like a watermark to us, but you know how sneaky the Illuminati can be, denials notwithstanding). Collect the clues and crack the code… if you dare.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!