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‘Lord Of The Wings’ Food Truck Trademark In New Zealand Defeated By Tolkien Estate
(www.techdirt.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Trademarks aren't copyright or patents. The entire point of trademarks is to identify a brand. That said, I don't really understand trademarking LOTR at all, it seems like it's copyright, but IP laws are used so broadly now to just stifle things that who TF knows, and I have no idea about NZ law.
Lord of the Rings has nothing to do with food or chicken wings trucks, so seems like it shouldn't apply. Usually trademarks are in the same industry, so you wouldn't want someone else writing a knock off series of books called Lord of the Rings and trademark would help there.
That said, the other thing that seems suspicious to me is trademarks in the US are pretty specific - it has to be the exact wording which is why so many companies "mispell" the names, well that and in the US you often can't trademark a generic word (though Apple threw a wrench in that one). Or the graphic design has to be extremely close.
You can trademark a generic word, but only in a specific context. Microsoft has a trademark on "Windows", for example, but it only applies if you're using it in the name of an operating system.