For the past three weeks the eyes of the sporting world have been focused on South Africa, as the 32 top national teams battle in the World Cup finals. The U.K.’s Guardian reports that the tournament has provided attorneys in the host nation with a windfall of business opportunities. Most of the work is related to the registration and enforcement of FIFA’s trademark portfolio. Soccer’s governing body is highly concerned with enforcing its trademarks and preventing the sale of pirated and knock-off merchandise during the tournament. In addition to the upswing in IP-related legal work, attorneys are anticipating a surge in criminal cases and insurance claims as close to four million visitors descend on the country. The report also noted that the government has undertaken an investigation of some of South Africa’s airlines for violations of competition laws. Specifically, the companies are accused of colluding to install artificially high fares during the tournament.

And then there are the vuvuzelas, the small horns responsible for the continuous drone that has annoyed spectators and players alike since the opening kick. Attorneys in South Africa are readying to tackle countless tort claims seeking damages for hearing loss caused by the trumpets. Those racing to lock up trademark and patent rights in the instruments may find themselves already out of luck. A search of European Community’s trademark database reveals that a German company registered the mark in February 2010. On the other hand, the South African company who applied for protection in the U.S. in 2005 abandoned it in 2008. Potential patentees may have an easier time taking advantage of vuvuzela fever. A search of the U.S. patent database did not reveal any patents or published applications for an embodiment of the instrument. As the tournament continues into its knock-out stages, the work for attorneys is not likely to show signs of slowing down anytime soon.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa was only four days old when FIFA alleged the first act of ambush marketing inside a tournament venue.  The allegation was not surprising for two reasons.  First, FIFA had vowed to aggressively defend its trademarks and sponsors against unauthorized attempts to leverage the worldwide appeal of the event.  Second, the alleged infringer attempted a similar effort during the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany.

During the Denmark-Holland match on Monday, June 14th, thirty-six female fans clad in skimpy orange dresses were detained, questioned, and accused of promoting Dutch brewery Bavaria, which is not an official World Cup sponsor.  Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser is the official beer of the World Cup.  Two Dutch women, who were part of the larger group of females, are being prosecuted under the Contravention of Merchandise Marks Act, “which prevents companies benefiting from an event without paying for advertising.”  FIFA has also initiated litigation against the brewery.  However, FIFA did not file charges against the other thirty-four women, South Africans hired for the day to pose as Dutch fans.

Meanwhile, The Sports Authority, Inc. and the U.S. Soccer Federation are due in court for a status hearing following the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granting a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Sports Authority.  The U.S. Soccer Federation claims that Sports Authority used its trademarked uniforms and crest without authorization in a television commercial featuring New England Revolution forward Tyler Twellman and former New York Giant Michael Strahan.  Dick’s Sporting Goods is the official sporting goods retailer of the U.S. Soccer Federation.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa began Friday when host South Africa opened the month-long tournament against Mexico.  Boasting a total cumulative audience of over 26 billion viewers in 2006, the quadrennial event is rightfully billed as the most viewed sporting event in the world.  With FIFA having a Forbes’ brand value of $120 million, not all of the action in South Africa will be reserved for the pitch.  In fact, FIFA plans to protect its trademarks aggressively from ambush marketers in South African courtrooms and around the globe.

Represented by Spoor & Fisher in South Africa, FIFA began developing its legal strategy in 2004.  FIFA also released a 26-page Public Information Sheet designed to “offer guidance and information to the general public” regarding unauthorized commercial associations with the event.  Despite this effort to stem infringement, ambush-marketing attempts are commonplace during major international sporting events. Therefore, FIFA selected as a test case a Pretoria restaurant that refused to halt its use of the phrase “World Cup 2010″ in promotional materials to determine the strength of its strategy.  When the High Court of South Africa ruled in FIFA’s favor, businesses of all sizes were put on notice that they also would be targeted if suspected of infringement.

Moreover, FIFA established a Cape Town-based unit to investigate suspected infringers.  South African low-fare airline Kulula Air was contacted for using the phrase “Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know What” in a recent advertisement.  In addition, Hook Norton Brewery in Oxfordshire, England, is being investigated because promotional materials for the brewery’s limited edition summer ale included the phrase “FIFA World Cup 2010.”  Presented with countless infringement opportunities over the next thirty days, it is safe to say that Kulula and Hook Norton will not be the lone-suspected infringers before a champion is crowned.

David Kappos, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, recently announced that the USPTO and Google, Inc. have entered into a two year agreement.  According to the arrangement, the USPTO will provide Google with its existing bulk patent and trademark public data. Google will host the approximately 10 terabytes of data, without modification, on its website at no cost. Currently, one can retrieve patent grants and published applications, trademark applications, TTAB proceedings, and assignments from the site.

Previously, bulk data only could be retrieved from the USPTO on DVDs for a fee. The bulk, machine readable format offered through Google allows IP groups to analyze the data to determine trends at no cost. In addition, the agreement provides the USPTO time to strategically transact with a contractor who has the technical abilities to retrieve and distribute bulk data from the USPTO.

You Don’t Know Jack was a popular game and trivia quiz show during the 1990s. You Don’t Know Quack is part of a new ad campaign for the Aflac Insurance company. Jellyvision, the makers of You Don’t Know Jack, are not very happy with this new ad campaign and are suing Aflac claiming trademark infringement. Kotaku has some details on the lawsuit:

The suit, filed on January 21 in United States District Court for the Norther District of Illinois, alleges that Aflac’s You Don’t Know Quack marketing campaign and corresponding webgame infringe on Jellyvision’s long-held trademark for You Don’t Know Jack.

Jellvision Inc.’s suit claims that the logo for Aflac’s web-game and the style of the game itself — a series of questions — are similar enough to You Don’t Know Jack’s to compel legal action.

The company is seeking monetary damages and a court order to stop Aflac from obtaining a trademark for You Don’t Know Quack.

In Los Angeles there are many vendors selling t-shirts in honor of Michael Jackson’s death. However, two of the shirts have misinformation: the wrong date of death and the other no tag on the collar. As Jackson’s estate attorneys are battling to make sure his fortune is secure, they are trying to keep unauthorized Jackson memorabilia off of the streets. According to CMG Worldwide’s chief executive, Mark Roesler, there are tens of millions of dollars in annual merchandising royalties in these t shirts. CMG Worldwide also handles the licensing and revenue of other famous estates such as those of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, etc. The estate of Michael Jackson has been selling licensed merchandise through the Universal Music Group’s retailing company, Bravado. Roesler stated that “In the piracy and anti-counterfeiting world, this is as big as it gets…it’s a daunting task for the rights holders to get on top of this.”

Since the day that Jackson died, many vendors are making fake merchandise and selling them on sites such as Amazon.com. However, the street vendors in cities such as New York and Los Angeles are more shameless in breaking the law. The estate’s administrators John Branca and John McClain told the Associated Press that the estate will take all legal action possible to prevent the unauthorized items from being sold. They stated that the sale of this illegal merchandise “provides nothing for the beneficiaries of his estate.”

The Los Angeles Police Department will not take legal action against the street retailers unless a trademark owner actually appears in court to claim that such items are fake. However, something that makes the situation even more complicated is that, according to the US PTO, the phrase “King of Pop” was not actually registered to Michael Jackson. Jackson had registered “Michael Jackson” as a trademark but only on sound and video involving his music. Common law allows for there to be a lack of trademark and still let Jackson establish ownership if used in commercial ventures.

Although the Jackson estate attorneys will try, it will be extremely difficult to get rid of every single illegal vendor.

Please read the full article for more information: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/262/story/795440.html

Yes, this is the real deal.  According to the National Counterterroism center’s website, “[t]his edition, like others since the Calendar was first published in a daily planner format in 2003, contains useful information across a wide range of terrorism-related topics: terrorist groups, wanted terrorists, and technical pages on various threat-related issues. The Calendar marks dates according to the Gregorian and Islamic calendars, and contains significant dates in terrorism history, as well as dates that terrorists may believe are important when planning ‘commemoration-style” attacks.’

Hasbro, makers of the famous crossword board game Scrabble, has filed a copyright and trademark infringement suit against RJ Softwares, creators of the immensely popular Scrabulous Facebook App. The application has gained immense popularity amongst the users of the Facebook social networking website, gaining over a million regular players since it’s launch of July 2006.

Hasbro claims that it has both valid trademarks and copyrights in Scrabble. According to the Hasbro’s Complaint, the original game dates back to the Great Depression when an out-of-work architect invented the game in his spare time. The game was first brought to the market in 1948.

Scrabulous contains no formal rules, but rather relies on user’s knowledge of how to play Scrabble in order to play and enjoy the application. The application’s website, http://www.scrabulous.com, also contains meta tags that include “Scrabble online” and “free online Scrabble.”

Recently, Hasbro has licensed the rights to Scrabble to software maker Electronic Arts (“EA”) . The New York Times reports that EA has contacted RJ Softwares regarding the application but talks fell apart. EA eventually decided to create its own official scrabble game on Facebook. While the officially sanctioned application is new, it only has 8,000 users in comparison to Scrabulous, which has over a million users.

RJ Softwares is owned by two brothers, Rajat and Jaynat Agarwalla of Kolkata, India.  Hasbro has also exercised its rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) to request that Facebook remove the Scrabulous application as it is claimed to be in violation of intellectual property rights. This may leave the million-plus users of Scrabulous in the dark if the issue is not resolved quickly. If Facebook were to refuse, it could face sanctions under the DMCA.

A new report released this week shows that the word “green” was used twice as much last year in trademark filings then the year before. The word “Green” was used 1,100 times in 2006 and increased to 2,400 times in 2007. The 16th Annual Report on Trends in Trademarks cites the recent increase in the use of “green” to the environmental movement which has been gaining momentum over the past few years.

The report also mentioned an increase in the use of the words “environment,” “clean,” “earth,” “planet” and “globe.” These terms are also more loosely attributed to the environmental cause. New product trademarks trended towards rebranding which emphasized certain buzz terms such as “energy” efficient, “organic” and all “natural.”

Last year was a record-breaking year for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with over 300,000 applications for trademarks being submitted. High application numbers have been attributed in part to new eco-friendly products and marketing campaigns. Notably, applications seem to indicate increased corporate interest in promotions tied to Earth Day.

A report released last week by WIPO concludes that cybersquatting activity continues to increase. The report offers several explanations for the increase, including domain name “tasting” — whereby the registrant holds the domain during a free trial period and uses it as a link farm — and a sharp increase in the number of accredited registrars, some of which actively seek cybersquatting business.