Royal IP

There's been a lot in the media recently about Kate Middleton, Duchess and Princess of various locations (I could look it up but I don't want internet algorithms deciding I'm interested in royal family gossip). But did you know about Princess Kate IP?

If so, you shouldn't believe it belongs to her. A trademark--specifically a wordmark--was filed for "Princess Kate" in Nov. 2010 by Nieves & Nieves LLC. This New York-based company was seeking to sell various goods (including perfume, fashion accessories, and bedding) with that name, despite no connection to one very famous Princess Kate.

Although the filings denied that there was any implied connection to Kate Middleton, it is almost impossible to hear the phrase Princess Kate and not think of Kate Middleton, wife to Prince William. They're international celebrities and members of one of the few remaining European royal families.

Evidently, trademark examiners of the USPTO felt that was a significant enough issue to make the mark potentially misleading, and that it identified a living person who did not consent to its use. I imagine that Kate Middleton, had she been aware of the mark, would also have objected to its use. 

It's Cambridge, I think I did actually know that

No approval? No live peoples' names!

The final dismissal, after numerous appeals, was made by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in April of 2014. The company in question also failed to file a required brief within the permitted time window. Perhaps they chose to give up, rather than keep fighting this battle.

You can find all of the relevant files and information on the dead "Princess Kate" mark at this TSDR link. And while it isn't as interesting to conspiracy theorists and scandal rags, I think it's a very interesting IP/trademark case that illustrates an intent to deceive fairly well.

Sensory Marks

Something that really interests me are trademarks that aren’t words or images: sensory marks, IP in the form of sounds and smells. These sounds and scents are so closely tied to a brand that they can serve as an identifier without supporting words or images. Some sounds marks are fairly easy to imagine, but resist the temptation to think of jingles or advertisement songs. Those might be copyrighted, but aren’t marks. It’s a simpler and more pervasive sound: the roaring lion for MGM/UA Entertainment, NBC’s 3-note chime.  Most of you probably heard those in your mind as you read.

And sensory marks are more numerous than I imagined! I performed a quick search in TESS free-form mode to get an idea of how many sensory marks might exist. Ignoring status like live/dead or registered, my first set of results was based on searching the mark drawing code 6, which is marks where a drawing is impossible, like sounds or scents. The search term “6”[MD] resulted in 909 records.

After several minutes of skimming through sensory marks, I decided I was really interested in fragrance marks. Far fewer were registered or applied for than sounds. How could I separate the two and exclude sounds from search results?

I tried a few different strategies, including searching the now-defunct classification code for sensory marks, and read a large portion of the TESS Help documents, to help figure out the best search term combination. Ultimately, I found that my first instinct to use the mark drawing code field formed the best foundation, and then filtered those results through their descriptive statements.

First I searched “6”[MD] AND smell[DE], but immediately knew finding only 2 marks was wrong. I selected the term smell because I noticed it in a mark's description, but  "smell" clearly was not a common choice of vocabulary. I adjusted to “6”[MD] AND (scent OR smell)[DE] for a total of 44 results.

I was slightly disappointed when I read through the various marks found. Either fragrances are severely underutilized as branding and IP tools, or I wildly overestimated their usefulness. Among those 44 results, only a handful were ever registered, and even fewer are still in use. I narrowed down to those 14 by searching (“6”[MD] AND (scent or smell)[DE]) AND live[LD]. Only one mark was familiar. (This is Play-Doh, right?)

The world needs more sensory marks. Especially scent marks. How often do you open a product and immediately register its unique smell, that isn’t directly related to its function or manufacturing? For example, if a group of Texans[1] was asked to smell a sampling of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper, I bet some would be able to pick out Dr. Pepper.

What about textures? Like the feel of AstroTurf, which was a ground-breaking turf technology.

What scent or texture mark would you propose?

 

*DISCLAIMER: References to particular products, patents, trademarks, service marks, services, companies and/or organizations in this post are for illustrative or educational purposes only and do not constitute or imply endorsement by the Kelley Center, Fondren Library, Rice University or any of its affiliates.*

---

[1] Consisting of non-vulnerable, consenting adults fully briefed on their rights in participating in a study.