Bon Jovi: Suin’ on an Error?
posted by Frank Pasquale
Bon Jovi’s lyrics can be a little inscrutable. But a recent legal dispute is truly hard to fathom:
Shortly after Marcos Carrington’s drink, Mijovi, hit store shelves last year, lawyers for the musician Jon Bon Jovi accused Mr. Carrington of trademark infringement. Mr. Carrington . . . said that his product was named for his companion of four years, Jovita Saenz. . . . .Mr. Bon Jovi faces an Oct. 31 deadline by the United States Patent and Trademark Office to formally oppose Mr. Carrington’s trademark. Mr. Bon Jovi has also threatened to sue.
I don’t really think people would think of Bon Jovi when they hear the name of this drink, and I doubt he’s established a “family of marks” in “Jovi” to the extent McDonald’s did when they went around shutting down places like McDental and McSleep. I doubt a “right of publicity” type of claim could work here, either. Memo to Bon Jovi: you give law a bad name.
Photo Credit: Niemster.
September 11, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Posted in: Intellectual Property
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Responses (3)
Jp - September 11, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Mijovi by itself = not too much of a problem.
Mijovi + their slogan “It’s my life” (a Bon Jovi song title) = problem
Frank - September 12, 2007 at 7:10 am
According to the article, they’ve dropped the application for the slogan. So
Mijovi +
one proposed slogan “itsmilife” (not a Bon Jovi song title, but sounds like one) -
the slogan “itsmilife”
= no problem,
right?
You might also want to refer to the Nixon Peabody song dispute for a story on how a big corporate entity should not treat a colorable but kind of silly IP claim.
Jp - September 12, 2007 at 11:10 am
Even if the slogan “itsmilife” is dropped, the fact that it was used belies the intent of the maker of this drink to come as close to Bon Jovi’s trademark as possible while remaining vague enough to deny similarity. It may seem silly, but Bon Jovi should crush this guy to send a message to all other scummy business people that stealing his intellectual property will not be tolerated. Nixon Peabody has nothing to do with this other than both happen to fall under the umbrella of IP.
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