Of course, as most businesses do, Google® has set out to trademark this name federally with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, submitting their name trademark, along with a stylized logo trademark, application for Schemer on the same day that the service was launched. What is very interesting from a trademark point of view though, is that prior to Google’s trademark application being filed, there was another trademark application filed with the USPTO for the exact same name by Meevine Inc, an Android OS application developer. The strangest thing of all though, is that even though the classifications chosen for these two trademarks are different, the Meevine Schemer^TM trademark application description of goods and services is listed as, “Downloadable computer application software for mobile phones, namely, software to facilitate group decision making, event planning, and social networking.”

Now, I’m no rocket scientist, but this “downloadable computer application software” seems remarkably similar to the exact same kind of service that Google Schemer is all about, and in fact, Google has already released an Android app for their service titled, you guessed it, Schemer. Currently, the Meevine trademark is Published for Opposition, but to date no opposition has been filed; meaning Meevine could obtain a registered trademark for Schemer before Google’s trademark has even been reviewed by an examining attorney. Only time will tell what will arise from this situation, but it could be that Google’s Schemer will be DOA due to the possibility of trademark infringement!

Between 2001 and 2004, and long before Apple came out with their iPad, Proview Technology, based in Shenzhen, China, began purchasing the IPAD trademark in various countries, including the EU, Vietnam, Thailand and China for a tablet PC product. Their product did not do so well, and Apple came to Proview Electronics to purchase the rights to the trademark name in order to secure it for the Apple iPad, which entered into countries’ economic markets in 2010. However, it appears that Apple lawyers missed the ball on this one, since Proview Electronics never had the right to sell the Chinese trademark, which is owned by Proview Technology.

In 2010, Apple began selling the iPad within the Chinese market even though they were still in litigation with Proview Technology over who owned the rights to the trademark name. Prior to the court proceedings, Proview Technology had offered the trademark name to Apple for US$10 million. Now though, the Chinese court has granted the rights to the Shenzhen based company, and Apple will be forced to either change the entire name of the product only within China, or pay US$1.5 billion for not only the name in question, but for damages as well. Apple lawyers declined to comment on the ruling, but Xiao Caiyuan, the lawyer representing Proview, says the prosecution team attempted to say that Apple did not know they hadn’t bought the Chinese trademark claiming, “[...] this was because they could not read Chinese.”

I for one know that there are few things in this world more delicious than a chicken and kale casserole, but It’s a little tough to believe that a customer going out to buy some fast food chicken who happens to run across a store selling a shirt with “eat more kale” on it is going to become severely confused between these two products, but hey, that’s just me. Now though, Chik-Fil-A® is saying that this trademark application infringes on their Eat Mor Chikin® , a trademark they thought up by using illiterate cows as a marketing strategy in advertisements.

“Bo’s is a very different statement. It’s more of a philosophical statement about local agriculture and community-supported farmers markets,” remarks the lawyer who has agreed to represent Bo Muller-Moore, the creative mind behind the shirts, sweatshirts, and bumper stickers. He started printing in 2000, when a friend of his and local kale farmer asked for them for his family and it quickly became a business as more and more people wanted to show their pride in the vegetable. “Our plan is to not back down. This feels like David versus Goliath. I know what it’s like to protect what’s yours in business,” says the 38-year-old artist turned business man.

Currently, the trademark in question is still moving through the application process, and only time will tell what the outcome of the litigation is. However Vermont Law School professor Oliver Goodenough, who specializes in intellectual and property law, said the kale versus “chikin” fight, “[...] looks a bit like an example of over-enthusiasm for brand protection. There are [law] firms in the United States that take this over-enthusiasm for brand protection seriously and believe the more they can scare away the better.” Whatever the case may be, whether you choose to eat more “chikin” or kale is ultimately your decision.

To date, there have been over ten new trademark applications filed with the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office that correspond directly to the OWS movement, most notably “Occupy Wall Street” by Fer-Eng Investments, LLC, a company based in Rancho Santa Fe, California and “Occupy Wall Street” by Occupy Wall Street from New York City, New York. Both of these applications were filed no more than one month ago and both have filed under classifications for leather goods and clothing. Other notable trademark applications pertaining to OWS would be “Occupy D.C. 2012”, “Occupy LA”, “I’m Occupied” and “Occupy Together”. Another trademark application, “Occupy Wall St.” by Diane Maresca from West Islip, New York was expressly abandoned after being filed.

The remarkable thing about all of these applications is the disregard for the actual ideals of the movement that these applications portray. Case in point, these applications are strictly for products or entertainment services; is there really anything political or serious about leather goods and clothing? If the individuals/organizations attempting to register these trademarks actually believed that what they were doing was a true social movement, I would suggest they apply for “personal and social services rendered by others to meet the needs of individuals.” For now it seems like it’s a race to see who can own the rights to the name to make a quick buck from tourists snapping pictures in the New York financial district.

In the end, the joke will ultimately be on these people, who paid god knows how much for their applications as each classification chosen is typically a multiplication of the fee required. The typical trademark can expect to receive registration only after it has been approved by the examining attorney at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and has been published for opposition, a time frame of approximately seven months only if the examining attorney doesn’t issue any requests for revision of the application upon review. Regardless of whether this movement is a fad or something more that does change the political and economic landscape of this country, one thing is for sure: by the time these trademarks are registered, there will be no commercial value to them because the social climate changes faster than you can say, “Occupy what?”

“We don’t want someone coming across our trademark on a porn site. God only knows what they’d come up with,” said Terry Robb, director of information technology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Hundreds of other businesses, schools and non-profit organizations feel the same way, and have been registering their domain names for the new address in order to protect their trademarks from rated-X infringement. Most of these preregistered domain names will simply be pointed to the better known .com, .net, or .edu domain addresses that have already been used for decades.

Preregistration costs about $200 per domain name which most say is a small price to pay to protect a registered trademark in today’s age of information. The new .xxx domain address is supposedly targeted to companies and individuals who offer pornographic services, a move that some say is an under-handed way to make these websites easier to block using web-page filtering software.Once this top level domain address is available to the public, a big question will arise for trademark owners: will they be able to keep their domain names Safe for Work?

More information on preregistration can be found at http://about.xxx/.