Trademark literacy: no wine and cheese party
Thursday, October 15th, 2009A trademark smackdown is reportedly brewing between World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. and the Philadelphia Wine School over the word “smackdown.”
Apparently the Wine School has been holding a competition for food and wine pairings since 2007 called “Sommelier Smackdown.” When they recently went to register the phrase as a trademark the champions of masked men in tights sent a cease-and-desist body slam letter opposing the registration on the grounds that their own “Smackdown” program had been on the air since 1999 and they already owned the word smackdown for entertainment purposes.
It’s hard to believe that someone would confuse wrestlers with wine connoisseurs, not that professional wrestlers couldn’t enjoy a fine glass of wine. But, let’s face it – we’re more likely to expect the WWE’s Smackdown show to have wrestlers breaking bottles over each others’ heads than consuming them in the name of entertainment.
Nonetheless, the smackdown case illustrates how the class distinctions matter in trademark law and how the lack of segmentation within classes can lead to head-butting over who has the right to use a certain word or phrase.
Copyright © 2009 Corporate M.O., LLC
