As noted here and elsewhere last month, Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin filed last year for trademark registration of their names. While some wondered why or how a personal name could be registered, this is a common practice for celebrities, speakers, athletes and others who generate a lot of money because of there name (for example: Wolfgang Puck, Martha Stewart, Tiger Woods, Lebron James, Mick Jagger).
The actual news was that Sarah Palin’s application was initially rejected in November due to (1) a failure to indicate her consent (when a trademark identifies a specific person, that person must consent to protect someone else from registering the name) and (2) a lack of proper evidence to show use of the SARAH PALIN name in connection with “Information about political elections” and “Providing a website featuring information about political issues”. Not a big deal, however, most applications require some fixing after review by the USPTO and the applicant has six months to file a response.
Photo from A.P.
Last week, the Palins appointed a new attorney, Lisa C. Hamby of Clapp, Peterson, Tiemessen, Thorsness & Johnson LLC in Fairbanks, Alaska. [Note, Ms. Hamby appears to be attorney of record for just one other USPTO record.] And evidence of use for “Information about political elections” was submitted on March 3rd. See below. Unfortunaetely, we cannot view the evidence because it was filed on CD-ROM. Nevertheless, it appears that Ms. Palin’s consent has not filed been filed yet. See below.
Ms. Palin and her new attorney still have some work to do to gain approval from the USPTO.
A bit ironic, right? You wonder why she didn’t just send in a screenshot of her website….