“Do You Know The Way To San Jose?” Hal David and Burt Bacharach.
It’s been a long time between posts–largely because a trial in San Jose, CA beckoned me out West and I’ve just begun to settle back into the blogging routine.
While I was away, the Olympics took place in London, largely without any of the ambush advertising/trademark incidents many feared might infiltrate the event. Hanes, the underwear maker, produced a tv commercial featuring a well-muscled model swinging on a series of metal rings, perhaps bringing to mind the Olympic rings symbol without paying to become an official Olympic sponsor. But mostly, the advertisers that aired commercials during the Olympic fortnight played by the rules while the athletes swam, ran, dove, dressaged and rhythmically tumbled their way to gold, silver, and bronze, if not to lucrative commercial endorsements.
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, and the quintessential American hero, passed away, but not without NBC committing one of the most egregious gaffes in recent memory. “Astronaut Neil Young, first man to walk on the moon, dies at age 82,” read the online report’s headline at NBCNews.com. One small step for man, one giant screw up for journalistic kind. Neil Young, by the way, is alive and well, tearing up stages with his longtime band Crazy Horse adding their unique brand of raw rock to Neil’s Ragged Glory for the first time in years.
The Republicans held their convention in Tampa, undermining their claim to competency by scheduling the event in Florida during the height of hurricane season, and by inviting Clint Eastwood to interview an empty chair.
And just last week, legendary lyricist Hal David died. David teamed with Burt Bacharach on a string of top 40 and Oscar-winning hits during the 60s and 70s, including “Do You Know The Way To San Jose,” “Alfie,” and “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” His keen and provocative lyrical sense was typified in this line from Alfie: “What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie? Are we meant to take more
than we give or are we meant to be kind?” I vote for kind.
On the trademark front, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit give Christian Louboutin a qualified victory in the “Red Shoes” case I wrote about in one of my earliest posts. The lower court had kicked out Louboutin’s claim of trademark rights for the red outer soles of its shoes, reasoning that a single color could never function as a trademark in the fashion industry. But the Second Circuit booted that categorical rule, concluding that an earlier Supreme Court case upholding a single-color trademark for an industrial product applied equally to the realm of fashion. Still, Louboutin again failed in its effort to block YSL from selling a monochromatic shoe that was red, top to bottom. The appeals court ruled that Louboutin’s trademark only covered red soles with contrasting uppers, where the red created visual “pop.” So, in the spirit of Neil Armstrong, we can conclude that the Red Shoe decision was one small step for Louboutin, but not a giant leap for shoe-kind.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” Carl Sagan
softrights 