We reported last week on the rise of overnight sensation Jeremy Lin in the domain world. Lin has led the New York Knicks to a seven game winning streak and become such a sensation, that he is being compared to Tim Tebow and Tebowmania.
Linsanity.com was registered in 2010, the domain had been registered many times before, dropping five times. Before the Linsanity started it was available in every other extension.
Now over the last week and a half, Linsanity has been registered in the following extensions:
net,org,info,biz,us,ca,cc,ws,asia,me,tv,mobi and .co. The .co actually redirects to a hair extension website called “Xtensify.”
Linsanity.com has been under privacy since registered, but the owner is now coming out. Andrew W.Slayton who claims to have been his high school coach back in Palo Alto, is the registrant of Linsanity.com and TheJeremyLinShow.com.
Slayton along with another gentleman have each filed a trademark application for “Linsanity” Yenchin (Matthew) Chang actually filed an application before Slayton who is already selling Tshirts on his website.
CopyrightTrademarkMatters.com did an excellent job breaking it all down.
From the article :
What should Lin do? Will these applications for LINSANITY obtain federal trademark registrations? Should Chang and Slayton be allowed to profit from Lin’s success? As a threshold issue, it seems that “linsanity” is more of a catchphrase than a trademark. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. Here, both applicants propose to use the mark LINSANITY in connection with clothing (Slayton is actually selling shirts emblazoned with “LINsanity”). But is LINSANITY capable of functioning as a source identifier? Probably not. But there is no provision under Section 2 of the Lanham Act, which addresses bars to registration, that requires examination of whether the applied for mark functions as a trademark. Indeed, because Chang has filed an application based on intent-to-use, this issue may be difficult to determine at this stage. The “failure to function” refusal usually arises in connection with evaluating specimens (which are required to be submitted as part of the registration process to demonstrate use of the mark). And that may be where both applications stumble.
The website goes on to talk about how when people tried to register a trademark on “Winning” “Bi-Winning” and “Winning Ma-Sheen” They were rejected:
When faced with applications for WINNING!, BI-WINNING, WINNING MA-SHEEN and others, the Trademark Office refused registration based on Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act. Under Section 2(a), registration of a mark may be barred if, among other things, the mark is the same as, or a close approximation of, the name or identity of another person (not the applicant) and points uniquely and unmistakably to that person. In the WINNING! example, the Trademark Office refused registration on the grounds that the applied-for mark “consists or includes matter which may falsely suggest a connection with the actor Charlie Sheen.”
It is nice to know Charlie Sheen has the market cornered on Winning.
Jeremy Lin even has a Pinterest board called “Linterest” about all things Jeremy Lin.