The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected California company Grant Media’s recent trademark application for the phrase ‘Casey Anthony.’
Yes, that Casey Anthony: the Florida mother whom a jury acquitted of murdering her young daughter Caylee Anthony. The trial received an enormous amount of media attention on the Web, television, and in print media.
Exactly why did they USPTO reject Grant Media’s application?
Justia read the papers on file with the agency to find out, and we wanted you to see for yourself.
While the USPTO doesn’t involve itself in the, uhmm, morality or ethics of a business’s intellectual property business model, the agency’s examining trademark attorney Patty Evanko cited a variety of legal reasons that Grant Media appears to have overlooked:
“Casey Anthony is the name of a person who was involved in a highly public murder trial in 2010. She is not connected with the services sold by the applicant under the mark”
What are some of the proposed ‘services to be sold?’ A “special variety, news, music or comedy show.” No, we did not make this up.
“[D]ue to her fame, purchasers would presume a connection between Casey Anthony and the entertainment services.”
Yeah, that seems obvious, but we still can’t get past the ‘entertainment’ part of the proposed trademark. There neither was nor is anything remotely entertaining about the brutality and violence of associated with the death of Caylee Anthony, and the case against her mother.
“The application does not include this named party’s written consent to registration of the name as a trademark/service mark.”
Nor does the applicant ever appear likely to get it.
“No filing basis specified.”
The applicant failed to list any specific ‘entertainment’ purpose for which the mark would be used.
You can read the application here, and judge for yourself:
