As brands mull over whether to purchase the dot-brand URL versions of their names as part of ICANN's new online gTLD domain naming rules (along with the new application procedures), place-based brands are securing their preferred top-level domains.

eWeek Europe reports that there's a move to secure the .london domain for the city of London, while .scot is being eyed by Scottish officials for tourism and place branding digital duties.

Meanwhile, in another part of the dotbranding URL saga, one month today (Oct. 28) is the deadline for brand owners to block others from snapping up the "brand.xxx" versions of digital domains — and possible .XXXploitation of their cherished, trademarked brand names.

While plenty of companies are busy blocking their products from being used in the .xxx URLs that will be used to identify sites with pornographic material, there is one brand in particular that is embracing (among other things) the concept: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.Continue reading...

Social ad agency Twittad received a trademark registration for the phrase "Let Your Ad Meet Tweets" in 2008, but Twitter's lawyers aren't amused.

The social network's lawyers are going to court to prevent Twittad from the use of "tweet," as it "threatens to block" Twitter from registering "tweet" as its own mark.

Twittad CEO James Eliason, now blocked from selling sponsored tweets while his lawyers take on Twitter, is irked because Twitter apparently was in the loop on its trademark actio, he tells Online Media Daily, which reports "Twittad had talks with Twitter co-founder Evan Williams as far back as 2008, and that Williams encouraged the ad network to 'continue to experiment' to find an ad model for the service." 

Williams left Twitter earlier this year to found a startup, The Obvious Corporation, which announced a stake in tinier startup Lift in August.

Oh fick. A German schnapps-maker has just won a trademark lawsuit to register the brand name "Ficken." What's the big deal, you ask? Oh, it's a big ficken deal.

The English translation for "ficken" is "f**k." So, essentially, German consumers will now be able to purchase "F**ken Schnapps." (Ask for it by name!)Continue reading...

It’s been 41 years since then college student, Gary Anderson, designed the first and still widely used recycling logo, three arrows signaling "recyclable," "made with recycled material," or "recycle here." 

Anderson won $2,500 from the now defunct Container Corporation of America, which sponsored the contest. Anderson saw his logo for the first time on recycling bins in Amsterdam in the late 1970s. "It really kind of bowled me over," he recently commented. "It's just astounding to me that it really has become iconic." 

Now it's Anderson who's doing the judging, as one of the jurors in another eco-logo contest: "Make your Mark," the search for a logo to identify products made from bio-plastics.Continue reading...

Starbucks is suing a South Dakota communications company to protect three letters it holds dear: SDN.

The acronym for Starbucks Digital Network, which provides free web access and exclusive content to in-store users and via a smartphone app, is being challenged by broadband service provider South Dakota Network, which operates as SDN Communications, over rights to use the acronym trademark.Continue reading...

When Christopher McDougall’s excellent Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen hit bookshelves back in 2009, the running world and general public was suddenly turned onto a new concept: running barefoot. As he set out to research the book, McDougall had set out to research and write about Mexico’s Tarahumara, a group that was rarely seen but known to be able to run hundreds of miles late into life wearing sandals or no shoes at all.

How did they do this while runners across the globe in their fancy techno-booster $150 running shoes were still dealing constantly with minor injuries of all sorts? McDougall traveled with a few American ultramarathoners to see if he could find out. One of those characters, Barefoot Ted, has been at the forefront of a movement of runners who believe the traditional running shoe should just be chucked out the window (or at least recycled somehow).

Barefoot Ted, as you may have guessed, generally goes shoeless when he’s running, but occasionally he has worn Vibram FiveFingers, which is basically a glove for your feet that helps protect it from sharp edges while running. Now, the brand is trying to protect itself from the sharp edges of competitors.Continue reading...

As branding extends to URL with dot-branding now permitted, sexually explicit content providers are the most obvious purchasers banging at the door of ICM Registry to pay for new domain names, but more conventional brands are also looking ahead to see what’s behind the door.

EWeek reports that ICM has extended the period that companies can buy .xxx domain names from 30 days to 50 days in order to deal with the number of interested parties. In its pre-reservation period, ICM received more than 900,000 “expressions of interest,” eWeek notes. The initial registration period for existing brands, entitled Sunrise, will now run from Sept. 7 to Oct. 28 of this year. Then other companies can begin buying in on whatever domain names remain.

Brand managers that aren’t in the porn world “are rushing to register .xxx domains …  as the deadline for safeguarding their trademarks within the .xxx registry draws near,” eWeek notes.Continue reading...

It’s not the first fight the Mongols motorcycle gang has won. And surely it’s not the last. But this one didn’t take place in a bar. Instead, the gang that was founded in 1969 by some fellas who the Hell’s Angels rejected due to their Hispanic heritage has won a battle in, of all places, the legal system.

As part of an indictment of 79 gang members that included counts of  murder, drug trafficking, and assault, prosecutors were trying to not let the gang use its name or logo, as we noted.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a federal judge has rejected that bid, in a decision reached on Thursday.

“District Judge Otis D. Wright II said he ‘regrettably’ ruled in favor of the Mongols, in part, because the government had no right to seize property from unindicted members of the gang,” the Times notes.

"We felt strongly the law was on our side, but it's difficult to impossible to predict the outcome of hotly contested legal issues," George Steele, the attorney representing the Mongols Nation Motorcycle Club, said, according to the paper. "But we felt our position was supported by the law, and apparently the court agreed."

At the time of the indictment, the Times notes, the Mongols had between 500 and 600 members across North America.