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Posts published in “Day: October 26, 2007”

The previous Sam Adams

October 26, 2007
Sam Adams

Sam Adams

The very ugly community of trademark barracudas strike again, and maybe in a really bad place this time: They're trying to tell a candidate for office he can't use his own name in the process of campaigning!

Maybe this will be one of the cases that helps break the back of a really foul trend in our legal system.

What happened in this case is that Portland City Council member Sam Adams has said he plans to run for mayor. His advocates include KEX radio hosts Mark and Dave, who obtained two web domain names for the candidate, samadamsformayor.com, for use in the campaign, and mayorsamadams.com if/after he's elected.

If you click on those links you'll see a notice that "Due to pending legal action these pages are now unavailable." The reason for that is a cease-and-desist letter from Helen Bornemann, intellectual property manager for the Boston Beer Company. "We believe that the sale of any services or products under this name will cause confusion as to the source, sponsorship or affiliation of such services or products and/or dilute the distinctiveness of our famous trademarks and trade name."

It is true that Adams himself didn't file for the domains. But this action is aimed at barring him from using them anyway, and beyond that, if those two domains were a problem, presumably any domain in which Adams uses his own name would be a problem. And, as one commenter at Willamette Week asks, "Will historians have to use the little TM symbol every time they mention the real [historical] Samuel Adams now?"

The Portland Adams, no slouch at a retort: “They say they’ve been using this trademark since 1984. I’ve been using it since 1963.” Ah, but he didn't get a lawyer to file a trademark action at the time, did he? Maybe the lesson is that we all need to, if we want to be able to use our own names without having lawyers sicced on us.

Boston Beer may wise up and withdraw; we sort of suspect they will. But we sort of hope they don't. May the intellectual property crowd break their picks on this one.

LATER They may be backing down, in part. At a Wall Street Journal legal affairs blog: "A spokeswoman for Boston Beer called the Law Blog and said they never had an issue with the mayoral candidate using his name but they do have an issue with the radio station using Sam Adams for its own business purposes." That's an allegation of something that wasn't happening to begin with.

Smith in the mix

October 26, 2007

How does Oregon Senator Gordon Smith's race for re-election next year fit into the national picture of Senate races? Clearly, this is not a seat as at-risk for the Republicans as those up next year in Virginia or Colorado (or probably for the Democrats in Louisiana), but it's definitely on the watch list.

Chris Cillizza, of the Washington Post's Fix report, took on just that question (if not exactly the one he was asked) in a Q&A released today. Here's that part of it:

Arlington, Va: Collins, Smith, and Coleman: Tough incumbents. Collins is in the more liberal state facing a pretty tough opponent, but is the most liked among the three. Smith is still somewhat popular, but facing only a second-tier opponent. Coleman isn't well-liked, but likely is facing a polarizing opponent with high negatives. If you had to guess, how many of these seats do Democrats pick up? You don't even have to guess which ones!

Chris Cillizza: Great question.
I would throw New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu (R) into that mix as well. All four GOP incumbents sit in states carried by the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 which makes them ripe targets.
Sununu is clearly the most vulnerable of the group as he faces former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.
Judging from the body language of national Democratic strategists I would probably out Smith as the next most vulnerable; polling shows voters don't have a firm view on the incumbent and are more than willing to consider and laternative [sic].
Collins and Coleman are tougher nuts to crack. Both are quite savvy politicians who understand the challenge before them. But, if 2006 tauight me anything, it's that a national environment that strongly favors one party can overrwhlem even the most capable of incumbent campaigners.