Hyundai’s thirty second Super Bowl commercial could cost the company a lot more than the cost of production and TV air time. Watch the video and see if you recognize the trademark allegedly being infringed. Click here to see the name of the plaintiff that sued Hyundai for trademark infringement. See the actual complaint.
Arizona Republic: “Former nutritionist Jon Basso [owns the] . . . Heart Attack Grill. The grill is a medical-themed restaurant in Chandler that serves high-calorie foods and no diet drinks. . . . Brasso has become embroiled in a federal lawsuit with the Heart Stoppers Sports Grill on Interstate 95 I-95 in Delray Beach, Fla., over bragging rights to unhealthy food. Basso claims exclusive rights to, among other things, the federally registered trademark, ‘A Taste Worth Dying For.’ The Florida grill advertises ‘Desserts to Die For’.”
Phoenix Business Journal: “Stereo headphone maker Koss Corp. settled a trademark infringement lawsuit against a Mesa [Arizona] company [called Zounds, Inc.] that used the Koss slogan ‘Hearing is Believing”.”
The Huffington Post: “Had Saints fans chanted, ‘Who Are Those Who Claim They Can Defeat The Saints, Who Are Those?’ then perhaps the NFL would not have found itself in a trademark dispute last week, but instead the fans chanted, ‘Who Dat Who Say Dey Beat Dem Saints, Who Dat, Who Dat’, and there you are. The origins of Who Dat? are lost in the misty recesses of jargon, but some trace the cheer back to a Louisiana high school team. By 1983 Aaron Neville had recorded a version for the Saints, then referred to as the Aints. The Saints, by the way, got their name from the gospel song, which got the name from Catholicism.”
Professor Eric Johnson: “My alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, has distinguished itself as a trademark bully, happy to squelch free speech in the pursuit of licensing revenues. Here’s just one example: A couple years ago, they sued an outfit making t-shirts, sold to fans of rival Texas A&M, that depicted a broken Longhorns logo with the taunt, “Saw ’em off.” (Fellow UT alum Siva Vaidhyanathan’s take is here.)”