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

[Jeremy Green Eche]

I got cited in one footnote myself, which is a little exciting. The article
seems to raise some good points at first glance, but I'll read it in full
soon. Thanks for sharing, Lara.

—

Jeremy

Jeremy Peter Green Eche
Founder and Managing Attorney, JPG Legal

Office: (917) 268-7054

www.jpglegal.com
254 36th St, Suite B541
Brooklyn, NY 11232


On Wed, Sep 3, 2025 at 5:05 AM Carl Oppedahl via E-trademarks <
e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com> wrote:

> 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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