“Three years ago, Purina sent a cease-and-desist letter to Chow, Baby!, a Baltimore area pet supply shop and Web site owned by Robin McDonald, asserting that its use of the ‘Chow, Baby!’ name was likely to cause confusion with Purina’s CHOW trademarks and would dilute the distinctive quality of those marks. … According to the dictionary, ‘chow’ is defined as food, a meaning that dates back to 1860.” (Carolyn Elefant, Legal Blog Watch, May 2). More from Ron Coleman:

But companies such as Purina are not interested in discussing the matter. Brand management isn’t a seminar. They are interesting in executing and maintaining a policy of complete domination of not only their brand equity space, but a comfortable semiotic buffer all around that space to the full extent that they can get away with it. Judges simply do not award fees or otherwise penalize brand owners for overreaching under the Lanham Act, though the Act empowers them to do so (the exceptions are notable and hence reportable). For this reason it is worth it to Purina and companies like it — it is a rational economic and corporate choice — to litigate these cases at the small risk of actually getting to a final adverse judgment regarding a trademark they have no right to anyway, as weighed against the much higher possibility that the other side will surrender $10,000, $25,000 or even $100,000 worth of fees into the process — dollars that are orders of magnitude more significant to the defendant (or declaratory judgment plaintiff) than for a corporation that probably has counsel on a retainer anyway.

Filed under: Baltimore, loser pays, trademarks