as a trademark law professor i considered sharing an expert take on the twitter/X trademark debacle

but everyone seems to have a great handle on it already:

abandoning famous & extremely valuable marks while continuing to offer the services associated w/ them is quite unwise! most of the value of twitter is in its trademarks: the word marks, logos, etc.

plenty of consumers have negative associations with the brand, yes, but when a mark is a household name even negative goodwill has tremendous value

a LOT of people have asked me about podcast hosts who do paid ads during pods.

are they like influencers or endorsers--do they need to disclose material benefit & must they only share what appears to be personal opinions/experiences if they're their true opinions/experiences? FTC has added guidance. if the host is reading what's clearly ad copy & consumers will understand it as an ad, no disclosure needed.

BUT! if the ad is in 1st person ("i love this mattress"; "i take awesome pics on this camera") then those must be their real opinions/experiences

2 things going on:

1. blue checks given out for free to certain celebs/big accounts w/o account owner's consent, despite twitter announcing blue checks would only be for paid subscribers
2. blue checks appearing on accounts of dead celebs

any viable causes of action? (1/25) first, a lot of state unfair competition laws contain prohibitions on false endorsement.

colorado, for example, specifies that "a person engages in a deceptive trade practice when, in the course of the person's business, vocation, or occupation, the person...

(2/25)

everyone & their mom (or at least my mom) is tagging me or sending me links to the news about THE.

yes, the ohio state university registered THE as a trademark for shirts & ball caps yesterday it took them almost two years from application b/c the uspto issued several office actions with reasons the mark might not be registrable & even a final refusal.

OSU appealed refusal to the ttab, which remanded back to the examining attorney for reconsideration.

do we think these are bona fide chik-fil-a sandwiches purchased saturday night, stored, & delivered sunday morning? or any other guesses (paid employee with a key will sneak in & make sandwiches sunday?)

https://twitter.com/caitlincanahey/status/1439969562926227458

i'm enjoying mschf's website, of course, including the graphics, assumption of risk including injury or death (helpful when you're serving day-old chicken w/o a food service license), waiver & release, & indemnifcation agreement.

it's monday morning & i want to talk about pegging the patriarchy.

instagram.com/p/CTydOGiAqDK/ this is tricky territory for a few reasons (& not just the ones you might think). we're at the intersection of "avoid overpolicing trademark rights in expressive uses" & "use IP law to help small indie artists, often POC, profit off of their creative works."

nike sues MSCHF over lil nas x "unauthorized satan shoe" for infringement, false designation of origin, & dilution (blurring & tarnishment); allegations of actual confusion backed by social media evidence

(i typed "nike satan" into the bloomberg search bar, so that's fun) i'll live-tweet the complaint @questauthority-style even though i am supposed to be grading.

why is hailey bieber calling her new beauty brand RHODES & not BIEBER BEAUTY as originally planned? well for one thing, @uspto found a likelihood of confusion with her husband's JUSTIN BIEBER line. i talked w/ @pagesix:

pagesix.com/2021/02/04/why… hailey appended a consent & coexistence agreement to her office action response, which was supposed to indicate justin's consent to her brand name, belief it wouldn't cause confusion, & commitment to address any that arises-- but she forgot to get her husband to sign it. #oops

the decision in the @TheJimCornette v. @StaySickGRAVER trademark & right of publicity lawsuit came out last month and it is a treat. big thanks to @ericgoldman for sending it my way. here's one of the shirts at issue (thread):

https://twitter.com/BodyslamNet/status/1171842088607989762

g-raver is a deathmatch wrestler; he wrestles others w/ "improvised weapons, e.g. light tubes, barbed wire, thumbtacks, panes of glass, & weed whackers...graver’s signature weapons are tattoo needles."

he did not bring any of those items to court to defend this suit afaik tho.

a band called lady antebellum recently realized its name was racist & announced it would go by lady A instead. but another artist has performed as lady A for decades. today, the band sued. i'll try to explain the suit & break down some of the trademark issues in this thread.

https://twitter.com/questlove/status/1281043439442964485

1st let me say i agree w/ those calling out the band for its faux activism & hypocrisy. @thejournalista, @ira, @matthewacherry, @IWriteAllDay_ , & @yashar all have excellent threads on what's wrong w/ the band effectively silencing a black artist in the name of anti-racism.