On July 27th, 2012 the Olympic Games will commence in London. This seems to be the time for all sorts of underhanded commercial tactics. The IOC will do whatever it can to prevent this. For this reason the Olympic logo is protected by various trademark registrations.
Pinterest is the newest sensation in social media. The website was launched in 2010. Ever since launching the app the number of users has grown explosively, from 10.000 to 11 million. The site acts like a giant notice board. The user can pin pictures on a board and place them in a collection (moodboard). This way users can share their photos and favorite items. Users can use the moodboards to decorate the house, plan a wedding etc. On the website multiple moodboards may be found: fashion, religion, entertainment, but also company information may be found, however, mostly visual. By repining images of products can be spread quickly.
Since January it is possible to apply for new generic top-level domain names with ICANN. At the moment there are only 21 gTLDs (such as .com and .org). The new top-level names can be generic words, such as .shop, but also geographic indications such as .georgia, or even a brand name, such as .canon are all possible. The introduction of the new gTLDs has been postponed due to some software problems.
When a trademark is infringed by use of a domain name, two procedures are available to act against the other party: A court procedure or a UDRP procedure with WIPO. The procedure with WIPO is much quicker, but different rules apply. During a WIPO procedure it must be confirmed that: (1) the domain name is similar to the trademark, (2) the holder does not have its own rights on the name, (3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. Often these procedures go wrong because they are approached from a trademark’s perspective. This also happened with ASTERIXTOUR.COM.
Benetton has caused quite some commotion once again with her new campaign UNHATE. The campaign is based on polar opposites in the world, who greet each other intimately. Benetton hopes to contribute to greater tolerance between people and an end hatred between nations, ideologies and religions. The campaign features, six manipulated and edited photos of world leaders kissing each other. Including the Pope with the Islamic spiritual leader Mohammed Ahmed el-Tayeb, Barack Obama with his Venezuelan colleague Hugo Chavez and Benjamin Netanyahu with Mahoud Abbas .
TWITTER is hot. That makes it an attractive medium to exploit. Increasingly, there are Twitter accounts created under the name of someone else. So the account HEROBRINKMANPVV account is not owned by the PVV MP. But he is not the only victim of this. There were also false accounts of Mark Rutte (prime minister of the Netherlands - now off the air), the TELEGRAAF, (l was here replaced by a i) and Benedicte Ficq a criminal lawyer.
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Een korte introductie tekst over de nieuwsbrief waarin je uitlegt wat het is. Hoe je direct de nieuwste editie kunt lezen en hoe je je kunt abonneren. And click here for all the numbers.
Among others in this issue:
• EUIPO vs Mora TV: weigering geluidsmerk
• Jägermeister vs Alte Heiler: stop Russische copycat
• Stichting Nederlandse Top 40: gericht op Benelux?
• Tijdschrift HART vs Hermitage: soortgelijkheid
• Monique Granneman: nieuwe partner Abcor
