PUBLICATION FOR OPPOSITION
If the examining attorney raises no objections to registration, or if the applicant overcomes all objections, the examining attorney will approve the mark for publication in the Official Gazette, a weekly publication of the USPTO.
The USPTO will send a NOTICE OF PUBLICATION to the applicant stating the date of publication. Any party who believes it may be damaged by registration of the mark has thirty (30) days from the publication date to file either an opposition to registration or a request to extend the time to oppose. An opposition is similar to a proceeding in a federal court, but is held before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, a USPTO administrative tribunal. If no opposition is filed or if the opposition is unsuccessful, the application enters the next stage of the registration process. A Certificate of Registration will issue for applications based on use, or a Notice of Allowance will issue for intent-to-use applications.
Trademark Misuse
A theoretical cause of action in which one claims that a trademark owner has used its trademark registration to unfairly promote its monopoly trademark rights. Although purely speculative at this point, some legal scholars have suggested that the owner of a trademark registration should lose their trademark registration if they engage in abusive tactics that violate the boundaries of fair competition. (See article). This doctrine was already applied successfully with respect to patents and copyrights, and thus has some precedential merit.
The trademark misuse theory was proposed most recently to address abuses occurring as a result of Network Solutions' earlier dispute resolution policy, which placed domain names on hold whenever a trademark owner with a federal registration went through the minimal procedural steps required to invoke the hold. Since Network Solutions' old dispute policy did not require proving infringement or even any likelihood of infringement, the old policy gave the trademark owner substantial leverage in negations to acquire a domain name. Proponents of the trademark misuse theory claimed that unless the trademark owner had a good faith believe that the domain name was infringing their trademark, invoking the hold policy was a misuse of their trademark registration. As such, the domain name owner should have a right under the misuse theory to have the court order cancellation of the trademark owner's trademark registration.
Apple have rights to the name as a trading name, company name and as a computer product, however that does not stop one using it to use the word apple. Obviously I can't use the term apple to sell computers by leveraging on the good will that comes with that term, however I can still use the word apple even to decribe a computer in any regular english use.theflyingtinman wrote:Great. Want to put up some cash for me to file law suit against Apple?dazza5172 wrote:Okay so it appears according to these links that it is an Intelectual property case or copyright, again you can't copyright the English language ...
I'll split the proceeds with you.
For me, the damage is done and I will not shop or refer more students there again (I spend 2 weeks/yr in Hatteras with a large group of kiters). I was already miffed about their greedy no refund policy regarding lessons anyway. For me, the only way to repair the damage is if Real comes out with a miraculously convincing validation of its actions.RickI wrote:I hope the Plaintiff reconsiders their course of action in view of mounting negative sentiment against REAL, its principals and what may amount to a serious impact upon future sales and growth. So much effort and capital have been spent over the years trying to build a solid client base and goodwill to see it torn down in short order by what is being widely interpreted as a frivolous and malicious suit.
Good luck. I hope this is resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties very soon. The "trial in public" among some customers and peers doesn't seem to be favoring the action very much at all.