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: Trademark, Copyright and Entertainment Law Forum

You must follow the system.

By Anthony Verna, Esq.

Good day, everyone!

I was in Los Angeles last week for a seminar, and as soon as I returned to Newark, NJ, the cold weather hit me.

(Though I was staying in Santa Monica, where it is colder because of the ocean.)

Last night was fun, as my Phillies played - and won - in the first game of the National League Championship Series. Today's game is a 4 PM Eastern start, so it looks like baseball fans have to cut the work day short to watch the early game. That's the conundrum for baseball - the 8 PM playoff games end late, but the early games do start early. So, what is baseball to do? It, so far, has been putting the Yankees-Angels game late - New York and L.A. - as it knows the Yankees get ratings. But it still inconveniences a lot of people who are fans of the Phillies and Dodgers (especially a 1 PM Pacific start on a weekday).

Lots of my clients have conundrums, too.

• What do I do when my trademark is registered?
• Do I need to continue with the trademark opposition proceeding that has been filed against me?
• Do I need to register? (You already know my thoughts on this from being loyal readers.)

It's here where I'd like to introduce a few new items:
1) The Intellectual Property Security System. There are four simple steps to the system - Review, Search, Register and Monitor. I can lead you through all these steps to help you and your company protect its intellectual property better. Call me at 212-736-0007 x4 and ask me about the Intellectual Property Security System.

2) A part of the system is our Intellectual Property Self Review kit. It's a fantastic kit that is developed for companies to help re-focus and understand their intellectual property. Companies, with the review kit, will be able to clearly understand what intellectual property they have and the importance to register each piece of intellectual property. This is a kit with a $600 value - it is what we sell it for - but because you are all loyal readers of the blog and newsletter, I am willing to give it to you at no charge. Just let me know that you read the blog or newsletter. Call me at 212-736-0007 x4 and ask me about your free copy of the Intellectual Property Self Review Kit. We'll mail it out to you.

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Recently, a judge in New Jersey ruled for a company in a trademark infringement lawsuit and awarded $570,000. What that tells me is that there is an importance for the last step in the Intellectual Property Security System - Monitoring. Many companies believe that it is acceptable to register the IP and go on with life. In fact, that is only a part of the solution.

Intellectual Property owners must monitor their marks in order to see how it is being used in our large, complex modern world. Is it on the Internet? Is someone speaking poorly of those marks? Is someone co-opting your mark? If you are not monitoring your trademarks, you do not know and you miss out on the ability to enforce the rights you are given by registering your mark that is in use.

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In the Republic of Ireland, the Church of Scientology lost a trademark battle to a company called Prosperity Recruitment, which is an advertising recruitment agency.

I find it funny because of one of the quotations: Prosperity Director, Gary Mullan said: ?It is amusing that an Irish recruitment company?s services could be considered to be a close match to the goods and ?services? described by the Scientologists?.

Full post as published by Trademark, Copyright and Entertainment Law Forum on October 16, 2009 (boomark / email).