4 ms·

You don't need to formally lodge a trademark application to gain protection. At least, not under UK law. I imagine it's similar in the US. Not only that, but

You don't need to formally lodge a trademark application to gain protection. At least, not under UK law. I imagine it's similar in the US. Not only that, but he can clearly demonstrate both confusion and priority, in the same field. I don't think it's particularly clear-cut which way a judge would go.

jamesbritt 12y ago
In the US there is common-law trademark protection http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html It is not as strong as have a federally-registered trademark. But, as others have pointed out, the problem is in showing the likelihood of confusion. It's _possible_ that this musician could prove this, but I believe it can be quite expensive, and there's no assurance of winning. My gut feeling is the the idea of confusion is not so clear cut. If you apply for a trademark you need to specify the specific field of application, and there are quite a few and remarkably segmented. Even having a registered trademark as a musician may not stop another from getting a trademark on a tech conference. His best bet might have been to try to ride the wave of inadvertent attention, promoting his stuff to people on Twitter who followed him by mistake. Perhaps some number of them would have become fans/customers. But I can understand the anger when you think someone is stepping on your identity.
- regularfry 12y ago
  He calls himself "an independent artist and programmer." If he's been paid for the latter under the futurestack name...
  - jamesbritt 12y ago
    Ah, OK. Fair point.
unreal37 12y ago
You have to use the trademark "in interstate commerce"[1]. Simply registering a domain or a twitter account is not commerce and you get no protection until its used in commerce. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_trademark_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_trademark_law

jamesbritt 12y ago

In the US there is common-law trademark protection http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html It is not as strong as have a federally-registered trademark. But, as others have pointed out, the problem is in showing the likelihood of confusion. It's _possible_ that this musician could prove this, but I believe it can be quite expensive, and there's no assurance of winning. My gut feeling is the the idea of confusion is not so clear cut. If you apply for a trademark you need to specify the specific field of application, and there are quite a few and remarkably segmented. Even having a registered trademark as a musician may not stop another from getting a trademark on a tech conference. His best bet might have been to try to ride the wave of inadvertent attention, promoting his stuff to people on Twitter who followed him by mistake. Perhaps some number of them would have become fans/customers. But I can understand the anger when you think someone is stepping on your identity.

regularfry 12y ago
He calls himself "an independent artist and programmer." If he's been paid for the latter under the futurestack name...
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  Ah, OK. Fair point.

unreal37 12y ago

You have to use the trademark "in interstate commerce"[1]. Simply registering a domain or a twitter account is not commerce and you get no protection until its used in commerce. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_trademark_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_trademark_law