Lance Armstrong Foundation Sues Dog Collar Makers

By now, everyone has seen the yellow "LiveStrong" wristbands made popular by Lance Armstrong and his Lance Armstrong Foundation during Armstrong's run of seven consecutive Tour de France titles. Since 2004, more than seventy million wristbands have been sold for $1 each, with proceeds going to the Foundation, a national cancer advocacy charity.

Now, the Foundation is taking steps to combat a potential trademark infringer. On Tuesday, September 11, 2007, the Foundation filed suit against Oklahoma-based Animal Charity Collar Group (ACCG), a for-profit company, for trademark infringement. In court documents, the Foundation alleges that ACCG stole the Foundation’s idea in producing yellow dog and cat collars embossed with the words "Barkstrong" and "Purrstrong."

The Foundation seeks an injunction to shut down ACCG's website, an order ending the use of the LiveStrong slogan by ACCG, unspecified monetary damages, and an order destroying all infringing products. The injunction may be granted if the Foundation is able to prove that ACCG's collars lead to consumer confusion, mistake and deception that are likely to cause irreparable harm to the Foundation.

USPTO Publishes New Patent Rules

In the August 21, 2007 issue of the Federal Register, the United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO) published two new rule changes. Under the first rule, an applicant may file two new continuing applications and one request for continued examination as a matter of right. An applicant must submit justification of why new evidence was not previously submitted for any
third or subsequent continuation or continuation-in-part application, as well as for any second or subsequent request for continued examination.

Under the second rule, an applicant must provide an examination support document to the USPTO that covers all of the claims if the application contains more than twenty-five total claims or more than five independent claims. The examination support document shall contain supplementary information relevant to the claimed invention and supporting the additional claims.

The USPTO anticipates the new rules should improve application quality and decrease patent examination time. The rules purportedly go into effect on November 1, 2007.

Arizona State Asks High School to Stop Using Similar Trademark

The sports teams from Culpeper County High School (CCHS), a high school in Virginia, have long been known as the Blue Devils and have used the same Blue Devil logo for over a decade. However, Arizona State University (ASU) alleges that the logo is confusingly similar to ASU's Sun Devil logo.

Fernando Morales, the trademark licensing manager of ASU, recently asked CCHS to stop using the Blue Devil logo, which is virtually the same as the Sun Devil logo except for the blue color. ASU's main concern, according to Morales, is to guard against inferior products and trademark dilution. Under current trademark law, the use of a famous trademark in a way that would lessen its uniqueness is forbidden.

According to Morales, ASU officials uncover approximately 50 to 200 potentially infringing trademark uses each year. Although CCHS still uses the Blue Devil logo on staff shirts and identification badges, the school has pulled the logo from its website.