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"Guilty of misleading the American public"?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

The text "guilty of misleading the American public" was at issue in the Lanham Act case Groden v. Random House, 35 USPQ2d 1547. IPBiz was reminded of this text when reading an account by Dan Wetzel of the recent Brock Lesnar incident in the UFC:

And so that was the excuse. Lesnar didn?t flip, he just flipped the switch back into Vince McMahon?s operation where nothing is too over the top. The UFC, however, is real and it has tried to position itself not as a blood sport but one based on sportsmanship and mutual respect.

As Senator Byrd from West Virginia once said, who's kidding who?

**Remember Kimbo Slice? From a post by Dustin James at CBSSports:

When EliteXC folded months ago, UFC president Dana White had publicly stated that the only way EliteXC heavyweight Kimbo Slice would get a shot in the UFC was if he wanted to compete as a cast member on the UFC's flagship show, The Ultimate Fighter.

Well, according to Kevin Iole of Yahoo.com, that's exactly what's about to happen. Dana White has reportedly confirmed that Kimbo will appear as a cast member on Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, which is set to begin filming shortly and will feature former UFC light heavyweight champions Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Rashad Evans as competing coaches.

One big change in the 10th season of the UFC's reality show competition is that the 16 competitors on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights will not have to fight in order to secure a spot in the house like in previous seasons. This move could have been made to guarantee that Slice will not be forced to fight early and will kept around to help increase ratings as much as possible.

Slice hasn't fought in MMA competition since the last EliteXC show in October. He was scheduled to face Ken Shamrock in the main event on the card, however Shamrock was cut during training and was forced out of the bout. EliteXC officials then scrambled to replace Shamrock and ended up choosing relative unknown Seth Petruzelli. Petruzelli then proceeded to knock Kimbo out in front of a record 6.5 million viewers in just a matter of seconds.

**IPBiz posts related to Lanham Act cases-->

Trademark in "Bimbo"

Did campaign ads for Proposition 71 violate fair trade laws?

Pinocchios for intellectual property professors?

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2009/02/all-appellants-lose-at-cafc-in-kci-v.html

Full post as published by IPBiz on July 12, 2009 (boomark / email).