Sony Entertainment trying to trademark "FUGLY"

Go to this page and do a search on FUGLY
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk

Any ides what that is about? Any lawyers lurking here?

Please only reply to this if you know what you're talking about. If you don't understand anything at all about trademarks or trademark law, please don't muddy things up with your speculations.

 

Why must you always erase my posts?

 

Uh I do know. It's common Knowledge what I told you. A word can be trademarked. If you don't have it Trademarked Sony can.

So whatever dude.

 

Also you own the domain name. You can Copyright the site and it's content. But Trademarks differ from Copyrights. Trademarks cover likeness and use.

See like Popeye is a trademark you can't draw Popeye and use him for anything because he is trademarked. So they must be using it for a game or some such thing. It will be used to describe something or a name of something. So they want to trademark it for that likeness or use.

Really man google Trademark laws

 

Jeff,

I believe you would have a case if you can show that you've been trading under that name for an extended period. Your t-shirt, mug and porn business would do nicely for that.

Get yourself a (trademarks & patents) lawyer son. Seems a pretty cut and dried case to me.

-CG

 

It's scheduled to be published for opposition on October 10th 2006, after that date you have 30 days to oppose. If Sony doesn't abandon you'd have to go before a board to prove that it would be damaging to you by their registration. My suggestion - get a lawyer and file opposition after the publishing on October 10th. Of course they'd probably be best served to just abandon since you've been operating fugly.com well before their filing date of January 24, 2006 - but it wouldn't be the first time a large corporation bullies a smaller one if they decide to proceed.

 

Wow Ferine you sound like you know what you are talking about. I always knew you were the smart type.

 

makes you wonder what product that sony has planned for "fugly"? A Movie? Video game? Music recording? new line of olive green home electronics? Jeff, honestly, if you have the time, I agree with Ferene.. you could get paid, and PLEASE if you go for a huge settlement, get a ryder that says everyone in your employee, gets free sony products packages... its the only way Ill afford a Ps3

 

The million dollar question, since you obviously have used the term for a long time, is this -

What would Sony be willing to pay for the rights?

 

Yes indeed. Humm the PS3 launching... I wonder if it is for an add campaign

 

Please tell me that your pool of legal minds runs deeper than this forum. :lol: :shock: :roll:

Ok, first of all, it says what Sony plans to do right there on the page.

It's probably going to be yet another lame-ass reality show.

As some have already pointed out, there is a difference between trademarks, patents, and copyrights. They are all in the same ballpark, but serve different needs. Copyrights protect original works, even incomplete ones (literary works, photos, music, movies, websites, etc.), and while it is cheap and easy to officially register them, it's not generally necessary. Most copyrights these days are implied, even if notice is not given. At the other end of the spectrum are patents, which give exclusive rights to the development of an idea for an invention or a specific method of doing something. These are much harder to get, as they need to be extremely detailed and can cost an assload.

Trademarks fall someplace in the middle, and are primarily used by businesses for commercial purposes. They are typically words, logos, symbols, or other design meant to denote a relationship to a particular product or entity. A corporate logo like Intel, a clothing brand like Levi's, or a cartoon character like Popeye are all well-recognized trademarks. When you see them, you make that connection instantly to those products or organizations. This doesn't however mean that the words themselves cannot be used by anyone else.

In all cases, the application for a trademark must specify what it is to be used for under the "Goods and Services" heading. If there is a design or special font used, that must also be noted and described. This is more or less to ensure that more than 1 business in the same trade cannot confuse consumers by subtly (or not so subtly) ripping off a competitor's registered name-brand identification. By the same token, this also prevents large corporations or otherwise rich individuals from buying up all the words in the dictionary just because they can. You can't own a word, all a trademark does is allow you to govern its usage within a given industry.

The search for Fugly yields 7 results, of which one is dead. The others range from Sony's proposed comedy tv show, to clothing lines, to a fruit company. None of these conflict with each other, as they are all in different industries. They may all use the name without interfering with each other. Using the examples above, one could have a private eye service called Intel, a Mormon bible shop called Levi's, a fried chicken restaurant chain called Popeye's, or even a brand of mattresses called Microsoft. All these are completely legal, provided they are in different business sectors and do not attempt to mimic the registered trademark visually or otherwise. For instance, if a beer company called "Beer" used the Intel logo on its labels, that would be a violation of Intel's trademark.



So basically, this isn't anything to worry about. Could Sony start trouble with Fugly.com later on down the road? If they felt this site was somehow besmirching the good name of their shitty tv show, they could feasibly try to throw their weight around in the hopes of intimidating you into folding up or selling the domain; but the truth is, they wouldn't get much further than that.

 

You're kind of hot.

 

Thanks baby.

(You were talking to me, right?)

 

I have to give you props, you are a pretty smart motherfucker

 

Sorry, Jeff. I hardly get time to come here anymore and this is one of the few "serious" threads I will reply to.

They can't trademark a word if you can prove it is "common English" - that is, a word used in every day language. That would be like trademarking "G'day" or "BBQ".

Even if they did trademark it, you could not legally be forced off your domain name - you have been conducting business on it for 6 or more years. They have no case against you "cybersquatting".

That sums it up.

It's a crock of shit.

 

Or "You're fired" or "That's hot."

 

You too good for us infantile types now, huh? :cry:

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. :x

 

Strange that it made me cry, but it made you angry.

You should learn to control that.

 

Just passive aggressivness, Chessy.

I win!

Wait--wrong thread...