Thankfully, the application was also abandoned by the Association. There was quite a firestorm at the end of August as it became known that the ALS Association filed to register ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE and ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE as trademarks with the USPTO. I was certainly quite critical of the association (See blog, Washington Post, LA Times.)
It has now come to my attention that the Association also applied, on the same day in August, to register #IceBucketChallenge (Serial No. 86375299) and #ALSIceBucketChallenge (Serial No. 86375307) trademarks for use in commerce with “charitable fundraising.” These applicatoins are even more shocking as they were an even more bold attempt to control what was a publicly created grass-roots movement, phrase and phenomenon. These application were also abandoned after the public backlash on September 1st.
I hope that the ALS Association will fully investigate whose decision it was to file the four trademark applications. Did the ALS Association believe that it could stop others from using the hashtag?
for more about ALS and the ALS Association, see www.alsa.org
