KMK Law Intellectual Property Blog

If you are anything like me, while cleaning out your junk drawer this spring you will probably find numerous unused gift cards, given to you by various friends and family members last Christmas, or even on your birthday two years ago.  For me, the initial excitement of getting a gift card or gift certificate quickly leaves the mind once that gift card is stuffed into a drawer.  And if, like me, you often find those cards exactly one day after they “expire,” a new federal law may offer you (and me) some hope.

This is an update on my November 9^th post regarding new and (sometime not) improved logos adopted by various companies.  In that post, I talked about how much I didn’t like Pepsi’s new logo, which to me looks like a store-brand, generic logo.  Well, perhaps Pepsi agrees with me...

You may have heard that on Thursday, December 10^th, The North Face Apparel Corp. (home page here) sued 19-year old entrepreneur (and, apparently, amateur comic) Jimmy Winkelmann in a Missouri District Court for trademark infringement arising out of a parody Mr. Winkelmann created out of The North Face’s rather well known logo. 

As if protecting trademarks from domain name cyber-squatters was not already difficult enough, the recent announcement by the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) regarding internationalized domain names (“IDNs”) may add to brand owners’ already significant headaches in this area. 

Out With the Old, In With the New

During our morning reading, we stumbled across a nifty little piece from Fortune magazine on major brands that have (somewhat) recently transitioned or “freshened” their well-known logos to something new and different.  As a consumer, you have probably “felt,” if not actually seen, these changes during your weekly run to the supermarket.  For a group of trademark lawyers, these rebrandings are profoundly fascinating, as it gives us a glimpse into the minds of marketers, and helps us understand how they are perceiving their own brand image as well as the public’s perception of it.

By now, you may have heard the 124^th Maine State Legislature recently enacted “An Act to Prevent Predatory Marketing Practices Against Minors.”  This law, at least on its face, appears to prohibit both the collection of personal information from a minor for marketing purposes without first having obtained verifiable parental consent as well as the actual marketing to that minor by means of such information acquired without the requisite consent.