[E-trademarks] Calif Law Review article on ABR & TM law

[Carl Oppedahl]

A big smile here.   My name appears four times in this document -- each 
time in very small print in a footnote.  :)

Now to turn to the important things in this article.

The article comes out and says several things that I imagine many of us 
have thought from time to time as we interact with ABR and as we try to 
serve clients in the US trademark registration system.  The article 
introduces the reader to the notion of "nonsense marks" -- marks that 
quite literally have no content or meaning in any ordinary sense, and 
that in many instances cannot be pronounced.   The article points out 
that such a "mark" when introduced into the US trademark application 
system, will in some sense automatically be distinctive -- by definition 
it will not have been even remotely similar to any word in any language, 
thus poses very little risk of being deemed (by the USPTO trademark 
examining attorney) of being generic or descriptive.  And poses very 
little risk of being deemed (by that examining attorney) of being 
confusingly similar to anything that would turn up in the EA's search of 
Office records.  The article helps the reader to appreciate that while 
such a nonsense mark makes absolutely no sense in the traditional 
trademark system, the mark is absolutely ideal for the purposes of 
securing a position of exclusivity in the ABR system.

The article talks about the Tunisian trademark system.  I will note that 
it was I who first made use of the Tunisian trademark office as a way to 
secure a trademark registration quickly, so as to sidestep the poorly 
crafted Network Solutions domain dispute policy.  I used the Tunisian 
gambit at least a dozen times to protect legitimate domain name owners 
who had done nothing wrong but who were being unfairly treated by 
Network Solutions.  Later, others used the Tunisian gambit to try to 
protect bad-faith cybersquatters.    I wrote three law review articles 
<https://blog.oppedahl.com/three-law-review-articles-about-internet-domain-name-disputes/> 
about these things.

On 9/2/2025 11:34 PM, Lara Pearson via E-trademarks wrote:
> 
> Happy midweek everybody I hope this finds you smiling here's an 
> insightful article of the effects of the ABR on modern day TM 
> law Let's discuss!
>
> https://www.californialawreview.org/print/amazon-trademark
>
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