Nintendo USPTO Woes Again – Wii Remote Not Trademarkable
Posted by Dan on December 1, 2008As if any 2nd year law student with an intro to IP class couldn’t see this coming. GamePolitics reports that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has suspended Nintendo’s application to trademark the term Wii Remote, claiming the word remote is too commonly used to be protected as a trademark. Nintendo can still proceed, but they must limit the scope of the mark to apply to “remote” only when used in conjunction with Wii. Thus, Wii Remote would be OK, but asserting infringement over use of the word remote alone would not. Thanks to GP for hosting the original letter suspending Nintendo’s application.
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Nintendo tried again with a letter to USPTO in January. In February USPTO slammed back suspending the mark again. It seems that Nintendo thinks that the wii remote is not a remote but an ancestor,,,,huh?. The USPTO strongly disagrees. You can see the actions below:
http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/PA_1_0_LT/OpenServletWindow?serialNumber=77427250&scanDate=2009011244467&DocDesc=Paper+Correspondence+Incoming&docType=IPC¤tPage=1&rowNum=3&rowCount=12&formattedDate=09-Jan-2009
http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/PA_1_0_LT/OpenServletWindow?serialNumber=77427250&scanDate=2009020552669&DocDesc=Suspension+Letter&docType=SUL¤tPage=1&rowNum=1&rowCount=12&formattedDate=05-Feb-2009
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