Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/29/dark-trademarks.html
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@doctorow The “lost her trademark” link appears broken.
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While I oppose this overreach of IP rights, I would support a blanket moratorium on “Dark” in titles for everyone.
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Has Christine Feehan thought of co-writing with Chuck Tingle?
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Yep- borken, and here’s the corrected link?
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Surely there is no end to the lunacy one may expect to find in trademark applications from day to day? It hardly seems newsworthy; I have no doubt attorneys are happy to take their fees from those willing to pay them. It’s when they get granted and enforced that it’s time to worry, I reckon.
Also someone clearly needs to file some sort of trademark on covers featuring the disembodied heads of brooding, bestubbled prettyboys gazing off into the distance. Someone could get confused.
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Thank you!
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I have this dark fantasy of an alternate timeline where the USPTO not only denies such stupid trademark applicationd, but fines the applicant in proportion to their greed and/or stupidity.
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It was filed on her behalf by Greg Mavronicolas, a New York based attorney from the Mavronicolas Law Group PLLC.
I hope that he charged her a hefty fee for this doomed filing she insisted on. Someone might as well come out ahead.
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“How will people distinguish my urban fantasy romantic series with ‘dark’ in the title, about a brooding-but-sexy vampire who loves a mortal, from all the others?”
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Huh. I used to read Christine Feehan, a long time ago. (Don’t judge me; I worked in a bookstore, and easy access to all kinds of material had me reading lots of things. 
) She wrote a fairly decent string of paranormal romances, which were good, but by no means unique in the genre. After a while, IMHO, the books became too formulaic for my tastes (Spunky heroine with an emotionally tortured past? Check. Broody possessively-devoted alpha male vampire? Check. Evil villain wants to steal the heroine for his own? Check. Sex scenes with the same rhythm and vocabulary as her other books? Check.) so I just… drifted away and stopped reading. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t horrible, it just didn’t hold me enough to keep me fascinated, as other authors have.
Having said all that, I hope this gets smacked down, and smacked down hard. The term “dark” is too broadly used to be legally protected in such a manner. I don’t consider the works themselves distinctive enough to merit special treatment, either.
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Good luck with that!
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I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, but - aren’t “Faleena” and “Feehan” suspiciously similar?
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Sure, it sounds like a ridiculous shot in the dark to trademark “Dark”.
But go ahead and sell something electronic starting with an “i” and see what happens. Oh? You’re making an iToaster? Prepare to be demolished by Apple.
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Actually, iRobot products (like the Roomba) seem to be going just fine.
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I shall trademark ‘Alphabet’.
Oops, Google already did
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Looking at my soon-to-be-flushed fecal bolus in my toilet bowl.
Now waiting for someone to trademark the shape of that bolus.
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If it looks like the Nike symbol, you could be in reeeeeal trouble.
(Pretty sure I read a comic about that once somewhere over here and I am slightly troubled that it has apparently stuck with me for seven years.)
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Thanks! Didn’t know about this site. I’ve now pinned it to my taskbar.
Pretty sure I’ve seen the ‘I’ prefix used plenty of times, even on electronic products that can be used with Apple devices.
Then there’s Hyundai cars, like the i10, i20, i35…
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