Archive for November, 2009
« Older Entries |VANOC Unravels Cowichan Sweater Trade-mark Tangle
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Members of the Cowichan Tribes had the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) tied up in knots recently when it accused VANOC of stealing the Cowichan’s traditional sweater design, popularly known as the “Cowichan Sweater”. VANOC had initially asked the Cowichan Tribes to bid on the contract to supply the sweater (which is part of the Team Canada uniform) but chose instead to give the contract to an outside supplier over concerns regarding the Cowichan’s ability to deliver sufficient quantities in the required timeframe.
The Cowichan decried the move, which they saw as an infringement of their well known design. Olympic torch-relay protests were planned, but tensions quickly unravelled when VANOC and the Bay offered the Cowichan a license deal for their sweaters. As a result of these negotiations, Cowichan-made sweaters will now be available at the Bay. Cowichan knitters will be licensed suppliers to the Olympics and will be entitled to display the Olympic logos alongside Cowichan trade-marks.
The Cowichan Band Council owns several trade-marks relating to the Cowichan brand, including both Official Marks and Certification Marks.
Posted in Branding | No Comments »
IDNs on the Fast Track
Friday, November 20th, 2009
As has been widely reported, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) recently approved the Internationalized Domain Name Fast Track Process at its Open Meeting in Seoul on October 30, 2009. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are domain names featuring non-Latin characters before and after “the dot” – for example, imagine the domain name trademarkblog.ca where both the “trademarkblog” and the “ca” (thought it wouldn’t be .ca) are both written in Chinese characters.
The IDN Fast Track launched on November 16, 2009. As of that date, nations and territories can apply to ICANN for Internet extensions reflecting their name in characters from their national language. Criteria for acceptance include government and community support and a stability evaluation. If applications meet the criteria, successful national and territorial applicants will be approved to start accepting registrations. It is expected that use of non-Latin based scripts may begin sometime in 2010. ICANN states that as of November 16th they have already received six requests from countries/territories representing three different languages.
Perhaps jumping the gun a bit, the Russian domain name registry .RU is already accepting sunrise applications for Cyrillic character trademarks for the Cyrillic translation of .RU, although ICANN has not yet granted this extension. DotAsia announced that it plans to release IDN registrations in 2010.
While the launch of IDNs is welcome news to those who don’t use Latin characters, brand owners will want to consider carefully how best to obtain protection of their trademarks with these new IDNs. For example, careful consideration should be given to exactly how a trademark is translated into the foreign characters and also whether a registration of a transliteration or a phonetic interpretation of the trademark is warranted.
Posted in Domain Names | No Comments »
Proving a Trademark Licence
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
3082833 Nova Scotia Company v. Lang Michener LLP and Registrar of Trade-marks illustrates the importance of providing evidence of any licences in place when confronted with a summary expungement under section 45 of the Trademarks Act: an evidentiary burden that is not difficult to meet.
3082833 Nova Scotia Company (“3082″) owned the registered mark ENTRE NOUS for use in association with “telecommunication services, namely long distrance telephone services”. The mark was originally owned and used by 3362426 Canada Inc. (“3362″) carrying on business as Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. (“PTC”). 3082 acquired the mark in the course of a reorganization and the mark was used by PTC, which had become 3082′s wholly owned subsidiary.
In response to a section 45 summary expungement, 3082 put forward invoices issued by PTC as evidence of use, but the Registrar concluded that they only referred to “Primus Canada” and there was no evidence that 3362 or 3082 had used the mark and no evidence of a licence.
Posted in Case Law, Protection & Enforcement, Trade-mark Oppositions | No Comments »