Paramount Pictures turns 100 in 2012, but it’s getting the party started this week.

When the studio’s latest blockbuster — Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise — opens on Friday in IMAX theatres (and everywhere else on Dec. 21), observant moviegoers may notice that the studio branding has had a little work done, which some might miss as they turn off their phones or tear open their Junior Mints.

Paramount’s famous mountain logo has been redesigned, adding “100” at the center in honor of its upcoming centenary. According to its press release,

"The studio’s first logo, a symbol of a rugged, snow-covered peak from the Wasatch mountain range, was created in 1916. The 100th Anniversary logo was created by Devastudios, Inc. Paramount will use the (new) logo throughout its centennial year in 2012. Beginning in 2013, the wording about the 100th anniversary will be removed from the logo, with the rest of the design remaining in use."

Entertainment Weekly points out that the original semi-circle consisted of 23 stars back then while the new centenary logo only has 22. (Perhaps one was whacked when the studio released The Godfather?)Continue reading...

Can’t wait for the North American International Auto Show to kick off on January 9th in Detroit so you can see the next version of the Ford Fusion? Well, you don’t have to.

Ford has released an app for the iPhone and Android that is simply activated by pointing the mobile device at a Ford logo, whether it’s on a car, online, or on a piece of paper, Mashable reports.

The app, which can be found on the Ford Fusion Facebook page, allows users to go for a drive in the new car on a variety of courses and gives them the ability to view the bare bones of the new car from 360 degrees.Continue reading...

At least one geopolitical struggle has eased this holiday season, and a temporary peace reigns — around the Great Lakes, that is. This is because Wisconsin and Michigan appear to have buried the hatchet in their epic struggle over which state has the most legitimate claim to the mitten metaphor to describe the shape of their homeland.

Sounds like big stakes, eh? Well, despite the thorniness of the issue, Michigan and Wisconsin tourism officials today managed to declare a truce in the mitten war and even their joint establishment of a philanthropic effort they're calling The Great Lakes Mitten Campaign.

"We encourage everyone in both states to 'shake hands' and donate mittens to help make this winter a bit warmer for those in need," Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said in a press statement announcing a handful of mitten-dropoff sites around the state.Continue reading...

It's a border battle fit for the season. And with this new Michigan-Wisconsin dispute comes all the underlying tensions from a long and tenuous adjacency that include zebra mussels, Asian carp, rights to the Upper Peninsula, Packers-Lions, Badgers-Spartans, the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, beach envy, Lake Michigan mineral rights, and which state really has the fattest people.

Yes, Wisconsin's tourism department has appropriated mitten imagery for new web-based winter promotion of its mitten-shaped state. And that has made mavens of mitten-shaped Michigan — well, mightily miffed. The result is a frosty contretemps between pillars of the Upper Midwest that is only likely to get more icy.

You see, Michiganders clearly own the historical and traditional use of their right hands — with fingers straight up and together, they form a perfect mitten shape —when pointing out, usually with their left index fingers, where something is located in the state's Lower Peninsula.Continue reading...

Soccer in African nations has played a big part in Puma’s global marketing in recent years. That partnership has just taken another huge step forward with the unveiling of 10 new uniforms for 10 different African nations and a new exhibit at London’s Design Museum that showcases the new football kits.

Uniforms in a design museum? Well, they’ve all been designed by a “renowned artist from the Creative Africa Network, a PUMA platform connecting and promoting artists from and in Africa,” according to a company release.Continue reading...

It's been exactly a year since we wondered about how the U.S. film remake of hit The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would handle all the original book's Apple product placement, especially considering Sony Pictures was handling the production.

Now, a newly released image from the film gives us the answer. Looks like Sony got its way.Continue reading...

Skullcandy, the headphone, accessories, and clothing brand based in Utah, raised more than $188 million in its IPO this past summer and now it is ready to spend some bucks to protect itself as well. 

It filed suit last week in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court against Skelanimals, which produces similar products, over a trademark issue with the company’s logo, which also features a skull, according to IPBrief.com. 

Tom Burton, the legal counsel for Skullcandy, notes that the company has registered trademarks on the skull across the globe, particularly in the headphone category, IPBrief reports.

One way that Skullcandy has risen to prominence is by signing on some young big-name endorsers from the NBA such as the NBA’s current MVP, Derrick Rose (above), and the league’s two-time scoring champ, Kevin Durant, below.

“The suit claims that consumers will be confused by the use — perhaps even deceptively — of Skelanimals' similar style skeleton logos,” ESPN reports. “The complaint alleges that the use of the logos will damage Skullcandy's value.”

Skelanimals was copyrighted in 2008 while Skullcandy trademarked its logo in 2003.

Two different gambling-related trademarks have led to legal cases involving millions of dollars. One was decided Monday and resulted in two men losing a $5 million case against the Georgia State Lottery, while the other remains a mess between a Minnesota casino and a Las Vegas signage maker.

The Georgia State Lottery folks must feel like they just won one of their own games since two men that were suing the organization for $5 million lost their case on Monday, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The suit involved the logo for Georgia’s MONEYBAG$ game, a velvet pouch with wooden tiles, which George Kyle had registered as a trademark in 1995. It was used by the Georgia Lottery with permission from 1999 to 2002, but it also appeared on scratch-off tickets in 2005 and 2007, the Journal-Constitution reports.

“Scientific Games, which prints the tickets for the Georgia Lottery, did not seek Kyle's permission to use the logo again” and the Georgia Lottery went ahead with the game and grossed profits of $2.4 million in 2005 and $2.6 million in 2007, the paper reports.

In Monday’s 4-3 ruling, the state Supreme Court said that “the Georgia Lottery is shielded from liability by sovereign immunity,” the AJC reports, and that Kyle and another involved party, Frank Mankovitch “failed to legally establish trademark rights for their logo.”Continue reading...