Jeremy Lin, New York Knicks player, one of the most popular NBA stars recently, has caught everyone's attention, even the "linvestor". The "Linvestor" means those who are hoping to make a big fortune by trademarking puns of his name. But bad news to linvetstors, their plan may end up looking as clueless for the NBA teams have let this point guard slip through their fingers.
In the past week, two men submitted applications with the U.S. Trademark Office to claim the ownership of phrases including "Lin-credible" and "Linsanity." Since the advent of online trademark applications, such "trademark squatting" is becoming increasingly common. But Federal guidelines do not allow the names of living people to be trademarked without their consent, even riffs on the names. But there is also one exception: "deceased U.S. presidents." The USPTO says the data on celebrity applications are not tracked and would not comment on trademark squatting. Thanks to the current guidelines, these linvestors will lose the application fee about $300 for the lin's name.
In China Jeremy Lin will not be so lucky. This phenom also happens in China recently especially for such famous Chinese NBA stars. Some phrases just link "Linmiracle" are submitted to Trademark Office China, said by Lola -- an intellectual property attorney in TB-trademark.com based in Shanghai. Such kinds of China trademark registration is out the control of the NBA basketball teams. And there in China have no such laws to protect this point. So for your global strategy, you'd better pay more attention to the major countries' IP law. And these linvestors also remind us that in such globalization trend we should think more about how to protect our trademarks in the whole world. Especially China is becoming more and more important in international commerce. Almost all multinational corporations have register trademark in China. Maybe to find a China trademark agent is a good choice to help you deal with such case.
"Trademark squatting is also becoming globalization. If you have a global strategy and want to protect your trademark, you should keep watching them." said by Lola. The trademark dispute of IPAD in China has lasted for several months. This is a typical case. So to protect your trademark globally is becoming more and more important.
By the way, according to the latest news, Jeremy Lin is going to preserve a now-popular name in a legal and marketing sense and has already applied for the "LINSANITY" trademark.
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