Blog is now on Wix.com

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      Thanks for following our blog.

      In an effort to consolidate our Internet presence, we moved blogging platforms from Blogger to Wix, which was hosting our website.  Unfortunately, Wix doesn't allow us to link our subdomain blog.henryparklaw.com to a page on our website.  Thus, if you are looking for our blog, it is now at www.henryparklaw.com/blog.

- Henry Park

Trademark - Dosenbach and Deichmann

     If you live in Switzerland, you would see this logo associated with the store chain Dosenbach.



     I was recently in Germany, and I saw what appeared to be the identical logo.

 

However, it was associated with a shoe chain called Deichmann. I assumed that the store chains were related, and research confirmed it. Deichmann acquired Dosenbach in 1973 (see Dosenbach link, Wikipedia link). How fortunate was that acquisition? Deichmann acquired a competitor with a name that started with a "D". Now, it could use the same logo for both businesses create a connection between the businesses / brands (see my posts on Aquafresh / Odol-med3 and Crest / Blend-a-Med for examples of how businesses created connections between their brands).

- Henry Park

Warning notices

     I was at Burger King restaurant in Switzerland and I bought a kid's meal. It came with a toy that was packaged in a plastic bag, and there were, of course, the required warning notices -- in 21 languages.




- Henry Park

USPTO and Java v8 update 144 build 01

    Just a few days ago, I wrote about a new Java update (see link).

    I wasn't expecting another update for a while, when I received this message.  It turns out that on July 26th, they released another update to Java v8 update 144 build 01.





- Henry Park

Trademark - Coca-Cola Zero Sugar

     I like Coca-Cola.  When I heard that Coke was launching a "new" product, my interest was piqued.  What would they do?

     I feel let down. 

     It isn't a new product.  They reformulated an existing product, and repackaged it (link).

Old packaging

New packaging

     Apart from small tweaks to the formula, its appears that they added more red to the black packaging, and changed the name from "Coca-Cola Zero" to "Coca-Cola Zero Sugar". From a trade dress perspective, retaining the black and adding more red makes sense.  However, from a name perspective, adding a generic descriptor or, at best, a merely descriptive descriptor to the name doesn't make sense.

- Henry Park

The Pirate Bay - Walking the plank of copyright infringement

     Last month, on June 14, 2017, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found that The Pirate Bay website directly infringed the copyrights of various copyrightholders (InfoCuria link). 

     The Pirate Bay argued that it did not link or host any infringing content.  Rather, it hosted BitTorrent "tracker" files.  These .torrent files tell a user which other BitTorrent users to link to in order to download a file, and do not participate in the downloading of a file.  Additionally, The Pirate Bay argued that the trackers were uploaded by its users, and that it should be protected by safe harbor provisions.

    The ECJ rejected both of these arguments (link, at paragraphs 30-35, 36-37).  The ECJ went on to find that

in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, the making available and management, on the internet, of a sharing platform which, by means of indexation of metadata referring to protected works and the provision of a search engine, allows users of that platform to locate those works and to share them in the context of a peer-to-peer network

(link at paragraphs 47-48) constitutes a "communication to the public" in violation of a copyright holder's rights under Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.

     As there are no further appeals possible, The Pirate Bay may be nearing the end. It shouldn't take long for copyright holders to request that ISPs within the EU block user access to the The Pirate Bay.

- Henry Park

College throwdown - OSU

  vs. vs. 

    Ohio State University recently filed another federal trademark application for the "OSU" mark.  The OSU mark currently is used by Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Oregon State.

     Apparently there is a concurrent use agreement between Ohio State and Oklahoma State for their respective federal registrations (see Reg No. 1121595 and 1121596).  Oregon State does not have a federal registration for the OSU mark.

     Will Oklahoma State demure to Ohio State for this application?  Probably not (see link).  But, given the existing agreement between these two parties, it would be safe to assume that another agreement will be reached.

- Henry Park