Will Hillary do it next so the little TM needs to be put next to her name anytime it’s used?
Rudy Giuliani never shrank from defending his image as mayor, but as a businessman he’s gone a step further – even trademarking his own name, the Daily News has learned.
The unusual step, revealed in a recent Giuliani company contract obtained by The News, states under the heading “Use of Mr. Giuliani’s Name” that the “trade names and trademarks ‘Rudolph Giuliani,’ or ‘Giuliani Partners LLC’ . . . shall not be used . . . without prior written consent.”
Doing anything that “tarnishes, degrades, disparages or reflects adversely on the Giuliani” name, it adds, will be grounds for terminating the contract.
So, as he runs for prez, you can’t dis his name, attack his positions or his personal life, and so on because he could sue you for besmirching his trademark?
As for the trademarking of Giuliani’s name, Hess said it was simply “a proper precaution” to prevent the unauthorized use of one America’s most distinctive names.
“If you say ‘Rudy,’ everyone thinks of Rudy Giuliani,” said Hess. “If you say ‘John,’ ” added Hess with a sly nod to one of Giuliani’s likely Republican opponents, “you don’t necessarily think of John McCain.”
Hmmm… Perhaps it’s time to trademark ‘Uncle Dave.’ Then if any one of you smartasses says anything untoward about me…
Found by Mr. ‘Finder’ Fusion
Funny I think of the movie about the runt football player who wants to play for Notre Dame when I hear Rudy.
This just helps us along the path toward 6.5 billion unique names. That would be a good thing, I think, maybe……
That’s why I registered my name as a .com address as early as I could. Also makes it easier for people to find my website.
trademark or not, you can use a protected trademark in parody of that mark, can’t you?
Take a look at this http://www.publaw.com/fairusetrade.html :
“The Lanham Act permits a non-owner of a registered trademark to make “fair use” or “nominative use” of a trademark under certain circumstances without obtaining permission from the mark’s owner. The fair use and nominative use defenses are to help ensure that trademark owners do not prohibit the use of their marks when they are used for the purpose of description or identification. Fair use or nominative use may be recognized in those instances where a reader of a given work is clearly able to understand that the use of the trademark does not suggest sponsorship or association with the trademark owner’s product or services and therefore is not being used in a manner to confuse the reader.”
Pretty clever. I did not know you can trademark you name and protect against ‘attacks’. However, what then if he wins as president?
Anyway, trademarking names to prevent ‘attacks’ is clearly a terrific breakthrough for republicans and the war against terror.
#1- Same here.
Say ‘Rudy’ and I think of the one kid from Fat Albert…
What about the Huxtables’ kid?
Say Rudy and I think of the little girl from The Cosby Show. Well, shes not little now…
it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about him, it refers to those in contract with his company. I don’t see how that affects us.
Funny, I think of that dude who killed a kennedy… I know his name is Rubenstein, truncated to Ruby, but for some odd reason, that’s who I think of…
BUT, with the trademark name, he can have one of his cronies fire off some nasty letter under some legal letterhead suggesting that blogs don’t write negative things about him. Hell, with his connections, he might even get some judge to grant him an injunction.
It just sounds so stupid.