User:Cool Hand Luke/Sandbox

Precedent-setting Barnstar

I award EJSawyer this barnstar for serendipitously contributing text cited by an administrative judge in a real-world legal dispute.

In the case, In re Trek 2000 International Ltd., No. 77099785 (T.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 2010), Singapore-based Trek 2000 successfully won registration of the trademark "ThumbDrive."

In 2008, a trademark examiner approved principal registration of the ThumbDrive trademark to Trek 2000 (a supplemental registration, which confers fewer legal benefits, had been granted two years earlier). In an unusual move, the examiner requested reinstatement of jurisdiction after the 30 day period for public comment. Once granted jurisdiction, the examiner rejected the trademark as generic. That is, the examiner found that "ThumbDrive" could not be a proprietary trademark because it referred generically to USB flash drives. In an effort to traverse the rejection, Trek 2000 cited several references, including the Wikipedia article on USB flash drive. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board blockquoted this article, a practice that I (and other commentators) find somewhat horrifying. The quoted passage favored Trek 2000's position because it suggested that "ThumbDrive" was commonly understood to derive from a trademark:

The myriad different brand names and terminology used, in the past and currently, make UFDs more difficult for manufacturers to market and for consumers to research. Some commonly used names are actually trademarks of particular companies, such as Cruzer, TravelDrive, ThumbDrive, and Disgo.

Your 2008 edit inserted the key term into the article. You added "ThumbDrive" to the list of commonly-used names that were actually trademarks. Interestingly, your edit may have false in 2008—after the trademark examiner requested reinstatement of jurisdiction, she refused registration because the mark was supposedly generic. The 2010 TTAB decision, quoting your contribution, ironically made your contribution indisputably true.

Your edit is so unusual that I award you this first-ever precedent-setting Barnstar.

I trust that your edit complied with our conflict of interest policy. As an attorney gamely noted about this decision, "Wikipedia is available for posting a favorable entry regarding [trademarks]"!