Coyote Ugly

Liliana Lovell's Cabo San Lucas bar started out badly. Then it got worse. Back in 1993, Lovell, known as Lil, had founded the Coyote Ugly Saloon, a rowdy, honky-tonk dive in New York City's East Village. Seven years later her life as a barkeep changed drastically when Coyote Ugly, a movie set in a Hollywood version of her bar, was released. Seizing on the free publicity, Lovell ginned up plans to turn Coyote Ugly into an international chain.

Hey girls and boys, I thought this article was very interesting because almost everyone knows about the movie Coyote Ugly. However, I didn't know that the movie was made after an actual bar. The owner orginally wanted to expand the bar internationally, but that didn't work out too well. People started to copy her bar idea without paying royalties to her. The owner, Lovell, sued all the "counterfeit" bars. She was granted that royalties from other bars be given to her. Years later the bar had expanded beyond control, therefore Lovell had all but eight of the bars shut down. This article relates to our class discussion of the liquor counterfeit's. I thought that it was interesting because after the "brand" was made into a movie, its value soared, making people want to copy the idea.

By Ian Mount

Lauren Barnett

Hawk Signs Exclusive Deal With Kohl's

By EMILY FREDRIX
AP Business Writer
AP Wall Street

February 1, 2007, 1:31 AM EST

MILWAUKEE -- Skateboard icon Tony Hawk has signed an exclusive deal with Kohl's Corp. to sell footwear under his brand through the mid-level retailer.

Hawk, known for his successful lines of video games and clothing as much as his skating, will begin selling his shoes at Kohl's 800-some stores and its Web site in February, the company was set to announce Thursday. The fashion and skate shoes will be targeted to young men and boys.

Kohl's, which also sells the popular Vans brand skating shoes, plans to price the Hawk line at about $40 per pair.

"It's its own art form, own fashion," he said of the sport. "I feel like doing the clothing line that's based on skating culture is something that's intuitive."

http://www.newsday.com/business/investing/wire/sns-ap-kohls-tony-hawk,0,4011995.story?coll=sns-ap-investing-headlines

This is an inspiring article. Tony Hawk's new footwear line at Kohl's I believe will do very well. It is an alternative look that I believe a lot of adolescents will love. I believe it will do very well out west, with all the skater and surfer cultures. Tony Hawk is probably the most well known skater of all time, and will be an excellent icon for the line of apparel and one of its key selling points. His enthusiasm for the culture and love for the sport is what makes him so authentic. He has several other ventures including a series of video games, and clothing lines, all of which have done very well. The footwear line is decently priced, although has several competatiors including Vans and DC.

Famous Licensing

SO here is new line of tees and sleepwear with Mexican icons. I found this article very interesting because i didn't know you needed too license famous icons too. I'm sure this shirt will become hot like all the other little tees with famous logs and people.


Eyeing Hispanic Market, Palomita Line Seeks to Build on Nostalgia
By Rachel Brown


One Scottsdale Wooing Fashionable Names
Proenza Schouler's Target Collection Pops Up at Opening Ceremony
Obituary: Mary Joan Glynn, 85, Bloomingdale's ExecIf music is the universal language, nostalgia may be the universal sentiment.

With the February launch of the T-shirt line Palomita, Molly Robbins, president of LicenZing, based in San Rafael, Calif., trusts that Latin youths are not immune. She’s secured the licensing rights to several iconic Mexican brand and television character trademarks to stylize them in junior and girls’ tops and sleepwear.

“I want to keep it nostalgic, but make it fun,” said Robbins, a former director of licensing at Bebe. “It is not just about the brands, it is about the memories they bring to you.”

Obtaining the rights to brand images in her native Mexico was difficult because the practice is not as widespread there as it is in the U.S. At Fabrica de Jabon La Corona, the Mexico City company that manufactures the laundry soap Zote, showing executives T-shirt samples did the trick.

“They loved that someone was coming to them for their brand and their properties, that they actually meant something,” Robbins said.

A recent licensing coup was Topo Gigio, a soft foam mouse that was the lead character in an Italian children’s puppet show that was broadcast throughout Latin America — and familiar to many Americans from TV’s “The Ed Sullivan Show,’’ which ran from 1948 to 1971. Other brands to be featured on Palomita Ts, which range from $4 to $6 wholesale and $10 to $20 retail, include fruit drink Pascual, clothing detergent Roma and the soda Lulu. Sleepwear will go for $7 to $15 wholesale and $15 to $30 retail.

Robbins secured a three-year licensing deal with Wish Licensing to produce Palomita items. When Robbins approached Wish late last year, the Burbank, Calif., firm was searching for a line targeting Hispanics after previous attempts received lukewarm responses.

“We thought that [Palomita] was the perfect opportunity to really have something for those [Hispanic] markets,” said Joel Barnett, vice president of sales, marketing and licensing at Wish. “We also believe that it surpasses being something only for the Hispanic customer.”

Robbins envisions a multi-tiered retail distribution to capture different audiences. T-shirts with more widely recognizable brand trademarks would be for trendy stores such as Kitson and Fred Segal, while chains like Mervyns would be privy to items with strong resonance for Latin customers

Famous Licensing

SO here is new line of tees and sleepwear with Mexican icons. I found this article very interesting because i didn't know you needed too license famous icons too. I'm sure this shirt will become hot like all the other little tees with famous logs and people.


Eyeing Hispanic Market, Palomita Line Seeks to Build on Nostalgia
By Rachel Brown


One Scottsdale Wooing Fashionable Names
Proenza Schouler's Target Collection Pops Up at Opening Ceremony
Obituary: Mary Joan Glynn, 85, Bloomingdale's ExecIf music is the universal language, nostalgia may be the universal sentiment.

With the February launch of the T-shirt line Palomita, Molly Robbins, president of LicenZing, based in San Rafael, Calif., trusts that Latin youths are not immune. She’s secured the licensing rights to several iconic Mexican brand and television character trademarks to stylize them in junior and girls’ tops and sleepwear.

“I want to keep it nostalgic, but make it fun,” said Robbins, a former director of licensing at Bebe. “It is not just about the brands, it is about the memories they bring to you.”

Obtaining the rights to brand images in her native Mexico was difficult because the practice is not as widespread there as it is in the U.S. At Fabrica de Jabon La Corona, the Mexico City company that manufactures the laundry soap Zote, showing executives T-shirt samples did the trick.

“They loved that someone was coming to them for their brand and their properties, that they actually meant something,” Robbins said.

A recent licensing coup was Topo Gigio, a soft foam mouse that was the lead character in an Italian children’s puppet show that was broadcast throughout Latin America — and familiar to many Americans from TV’s “The Ed Sullivan Show,’’ which ran from 1948 to 1971. Other brands to be featured on Palomita Ts, which range from $4 to $6 wholesale and $10 to $20 retail, include fruit drink Pascual, clothing detergent Roma and the soda Lulu. Sleepwear will go for $7 to $15 wholesale and $15 to $30 retail.

Robbins secured a three-year licensing deal with Wish Licensing to produce Palomita items. When Robbins approached Wish late last year, the Burbank, Calif., firm was searching for a line targeting Hispanics after previous attempts received lukewarm responses.

“We thought that [Palomita] was the perfect opportunity to really have something for those [Hispanic] markets,” said Joel Barnett, vice president of sales, marketing and licensing at Wish. “We also believe that it surpasses being something only for the Hispanic customer.”

Robbins envisions a multi-tiered retail distribution to capture different audiences. T-shirts with more widely recognizable brand trademarks would be for trendy stores such as Kitson and Fred Segal, while chains like Mervyns would be privy to items with strong resonance for Latin customers

Brands, Trademarks, and the Brand Marketer's Dilemma

Should brand and direct marketers buy their own trademarks as keywords? Should you buy other competitive trademarks in your Google, Yahoo, or other search campaigns? There are no simple answers, but recent news has put trademarks as keywords back in the limelight.
The trademark infringement case between GEICO and Google, due to some PR sparring between the two companies. GEICO put some heavy spin on the published ruling, evening confusing the media. Some reports indicated the case's outcome changed in GEICO's favor. In fact, the ruling was identical to last year's oral decision: Google can sell trademarked terms and marketers can run ads, so long as they don't include use of the trademark in the ad.
The judge's ruling asserts only when a trademark appears in an ad keyed to the trademark as a search term is there potential trademark violation and consumer confusion. As Google's trademark policy has long been that marketers can't use a trademark to which they don't have ad copy rights, GEICO's PR mavens claimed victory. But the primary litigation objective -- to stop the bidding -- fell in Google's favor. Essentially, the judge upheld Google's policy of forbidding misleading trademark use in ad copy.
In response to negative buzz, Google issued a respond: "Google already has a policy that prohibits advertisers from using someone else's trademark in their ad text when the trademark owner objects."
There may have been some instances where advertisers did use the GEICO term in ads in a misleading way. That portion of the case is still unresolved. The guess is Google could choose to settle any possible damages relating to ads running before the current policy was enforced and proceed to take trademarked keyword advertising without requiring any policy change. Of course, Google might be interested in challenging even the current ruling, claiming that even with the trademarked keyword in the ad, there may not have been consumer confusion in the specific instances that are part of the lawsuit.
Ironically, some of GEICO's competitors continue to bid on GEICO terms, complying fully with Google's policies and the judge's ruling. For example, a search this week on that keyword "geico" in Google yielded the following sponsored results:
Free Car Insurance QuotesGreat Rates, Free QuotesShop, Compare and Save Todaywww.AutoandHome.comCompare Auto InsuranceCompare Quotes Online To Find TheLowest Rate. Save Big Instantly! GreatCarInsuranceRates.comFree Insurance QuoteGet an instant insurance quotefrom up to 3 insurance companies. www.quoteserv.comAuto Insurance QuotesFree Quotes from Top Carriers. Affordable Coverage - All 50 StatesInsuranceBytes.com/AutoFree insurance tipsOur guide shows insurance you maybe paying for but don't really needwww.smartfinancetips.comInsurance CompaniesCompare 100's of top InsuranceProviders today. Get Free Quotes. www.insurecom.com
Though not all these advertisers are using best practices to get their quality score as high as possible, and thereby maximize their net search profit, they're likely seeing a positive return on investment (ROI), particularly in weeks prior to this one. More of the search traffic is news-related, driving down the ad quality score. These advertisers might even consider pausing their campaigns during periods of news-driven search activity to preserve their good quality score.
GEICO and Google may hate each other right now, but GEICO does itself a disservice by not advertising with Google, particularly on keywords with a poor organic rank or for phrases for which a competitor has a top paid spot.
Article written by Kevin Lee
Kevin Lee is co-founder and executive chairman of Did-it.com, LLC. Did-it.com uses advanced strategy and technology to optimize the performance of its client's paid placement and paid inclusion search campaigns. Kevin and the Did-it.com team have been dedicated to helping search marketers succeed since 1996. Kevin is a founding board member of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) and is now the group's chairman. He also serves on the SEM committee for the Association of Interactive Marketers, and on the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Search Committee.

Has the Music Industry Warmed to Fee-Based Downloads?

"It's a model worth looking at," John Kennedy, head of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, said at a press briefing last weekend in Cannes at Midem, the annual global music market. "If the ISPs want to come to us and look for a blanket license for an amount per month, let's engage in that discussion."

"Remember the "global music license"? The fee that would free us to copy digital music with few restraints? It's baaaack.
A year ago, the music industry was in near hysteria over the French government's proposal to impose a global license fee that would stand in for royalty payments on the purchases of digital music over the Internet ."


http://www.macnewsworld.com/rsstory/55420.html

Remember last year when the music industry imposed the global music license, this is when one has to pay for music that is downloaded. Guess what, this year its back again. The new and improved rules are to give the record company an edge on sales. Recent sales of cd's have not been profitable. So, what was proposed was to charge a fee for all music being downloaded via the internet. A minimal fee of 8.66 USD is to be charged to users who download music on a regular basis.

Along with this issue another unfold, there is talk that some music will be banned to be played on particular devices if the license is not bought. For example, you may have a song that you downloaded, but that song will not sync or lode onto your iPod unless you have rights to that song, i.e., you have to buy the rights.

Unfair? Maybe, but, the industry has to take some charge on their demising profits.

Rahul Zala

HP PLAYS THE PATENT GAME

Hewlett-Packard, in some ways, illustrates both sides of the debate over intellectual property.
The company has increasingly been forced to deflect claims from companies and individuals who assert that HP owes them royalties. Some of the claims come from so-called patent trolls who buy patents on the open market and then use them to extract payments, Joe Beyers, vice president of intellectual property licensing at HP, said in a recent interview.
Patent claim activity "has really heated up," he said. "It has tripled in the last three to four years."
But HP, like Microsoft and IBM, is also extracting more from its own patents and intellectual property. The company created a group in January 2003 to better market and defend its intellectual property. At that time, HP garnered around $50 million worth of value a year from its intellectual property. "Value" includes royalty payments to the company and discounts on royalties that it otherwise might pay.
Now, the group sports an annual run rate of around $200 million, or four times what it used to get. Notable deals including licensing its LightScribe technology, which lets a CD or DVD recorder burn a label onto a recordable disc, to several Asian manufacturers. It has also waged a lawsuit against Gateway. "We've done 2,500 transactions in the last 2.5 years," Beyers said.Intellectual property has emerged as one of the major flashpoints in the technology world. In the past several years, a few small companies have managed to land multimillion-dollar patent verdicts and settlements against large companies such as Microsoft and Intel.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs such as Ross Perot and ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold have formed companies that are buying up thousands of patents that some believe could prompt a rash of lawsuits. Like others in Silicon Valley, Beyers said he is "quite concerned" about the rise of this type of company.
Washington politicians such as Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, have written legislation to try to reform the patent system.
However, reforming the system is proving difficult. Tech companies have pushed for a law that would make it more difficult for plaintiffs to get an injunction against defendants in patent suits. The threat of an injunction, which can force a defendant to remove a product from the market, has forced many to settle suits.
Critics of the idea, including both small companies and large pharmaceutical manufacturers, contend that lifting the injunction threat will prompt defendants to let suits drag on.
Several sources say that Smith will drop the proposal to make injunctions more difficult in the final version of the bill.
Although questionable patents have been a problem since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was formed two centuries ago, intellectual property started to become a larger problem for the tech industry over the last decade. Flailing companies have increasingly turned to patent lawsuits to boost their bottom line.
The "IP" business model also began to emerge in the chip industry. In this model, small companies invent something and then license it to larger ones. Invariably, licensing discussions that start out amicably end up in lawsuits.
Partly out of fears about lawsuits, and partly out of a desire to help defray the burden of R&D budgets, large companies have also begun to shore up their own licensing practices.
This was the case at HP. Before the IP group was formed, the company's various product divisions controlled their own intellectual property. A group that tried to extract royalties from a third party would sometimes find out that a different group at HP had already given the third party a license in a separate transaction.
To help bring order to the process, the IP group runs under somewhat rigid rules. All licensing deals need to be personally approved by Beyers.
Obtaining royalties for at least some of its patents helps. "We spend over $3.7 billion a year in R&D," Beyers said.

I found this article very interesting.I think this article gives us a perfect example of Intellectual Property giving us a better perspective of what Intellectual Property really is.Now days there are so many companies suing other companies for patent infrigements.In some cases it is really difficult to define who is the first that came up with the idea.A great example is the Blackberry dispute with Canadian RIM and U.S. NTP patents.They both claimed to have created the blackberry."NTP, the company holding the U.S. patent for the software on which the blackberry service operates,had sued RIM for patent infrigement in 2002 and won an injunction in 2003 to shut down the U.S. service". But just when both companies saw a brighter future; on May 2, 2006 a company named visto is suing for another patent infrigement because visto is "claiming that the Blackberry infringes on patents related to syncronizing data between mobile devices,and network services".

http://news.com.com/HP+plays+the+patent+game/2100-1008_3-5944056.html

Stephanie Carcamo

An all-American man: Ralph, Penney's link to create a new brand.

Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. has the first big customer for its new Global Brand Concepts division: J.C. Penney.The retail chain today will unveil the exclusive American Living lifestyle brand, which, come spring 2008, is expected to become the biggest launch in the moderate department store’s history. The brand — which will be completely created by the Polo operation — will comprise women’s, men’s and children’s wear, as well as accessories, intimate apparel and home goods, and be merchandised across those departments at Penney’s.American Living is the first major deal for Global Brand Concepts, which Polo Ralph Lauren formed earlier this month to develop lifestyle brands in exclusive partnerships with department and specialty stores without any brand reference to Ralph Lauren or his luxury empire. Global Brand Concepts will develop American Living from soup to nuts, including its design, production, marketing and advertising.

I think this is a really great thing because it is going to be an exclusive partnerships with department and specialty stores without any brand reference to Ralph Lauren or his luxury empire.

Fama Sow

Warner Music Makes Licensing Deal With YouTube

By JEFF LEEDS Published: September 19, 2006
YouTube Inc., the online video-sharing site, said yesterday that it had agreed to share advertising revenue with Warner Music Group in a deal that authorizes YouTube to show Warner Music videos and user-created clips that incorporate Warner music.
The deal reflects an effort by YouTube to continue running a service whose popularity is based largely on free viewing of consumer-generated video clips, many of which include copyrighted material like music, television broadcasts and films.
Under the revenue-sharing accord, YouTube.com will use special software to identify recordings used in videos posted by users and then offer the owner of the copyrighted music a percentage of the fee for advertising that would run alongside the clip. The deal also provides for the copyright owner to demand that YouTube remove the clip instead. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal marks the first time a major record company has licensed content to YouTube, whose emergence has created a philosophical divide among intellectual property owners.

Hey Everyone, I thought this would be a nice addition to the article I posted previously about YouTube. This article discusses the deal that YouTube had made with Warner Music that gives them the authority to show Warner Music videos and user-created clips that incorporate Warner music. Warner's label is very eager to market YouTube large audience, with clips at an estimated view of over 100 million times a day! YouTube.com will use special software to identify recordings used in videos posted by users and offer the owner of the copyrighted music a percentage of the fee for advertising that would run alongside the clip. Also, the copyright owner can request that YouTube remove the clip instead. According to this article, this deal marks the first time a major record company has licensed content to YouTube! Check out the entire article from the link below!

Michele Piccolino


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/business/media/19tube.html?ex=1316318400en=e6652285682a933bei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss

Brand Expansion

Sophia Chabbott

The Nicole Miller company may be 25 years old, but its loyal consumers are just getting a taste of what it has to offer as a lifestyle brand.

In late 2005, chief executive officer Bud Konheim announced the firm's all-out accessories initiative, signing licenses for handbags, footwear, belts and jewelry, as well as other related categories in a bid to boost the brand's revenue by 25 percent.

Many companies are signing licenses in a way of expanding their brand name. Nicole Miller is another designer doing just that. She is mostly known for her high fashion dresses, but now she is adding to her collection. She has signed a total of 34 licenses which include jewelry, handbags, sunglasses, menswear, home goods, and a variety of others. While many may say that too many licenses can be dangerous for a company, Nicole Miller is completely involved in every detail. This will also be a way for the company to increase their profits. If she remains in control of everything and keeps her high-end status I believe that she will have created a lasting empire for herself.

http://www.wwd.com/search/article/112277

Alexandra Artim

Cisco Sues Apple over iphone

Cisco Systems has filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of infringing its iPhone trademark, the networking company said Wednesday.

The suit also accuses the iPod maker of using a front company to try to acquire rights to the name.

High ImpactWhat's new:
Cisco Systems is suing Apple over the computer maker's use of the iPhone trademark.

Bottom line:
The two companies hadn't finished negotiations over the term when Apple's iPhone debuted at Macworld Expo. Now Cisco is seeking an injunction that will prevent Apple from using the name as well as damages from the company.

More stories on Apple's iPhone

Cisco accused Apple in a suit filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of California of willingly infringing its trademark when it announced the new iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Cisco said in the complaint that Apple had attempted to get rights to the iPhone name several times, but after Cisco refused, the company created a front company to try to acquire the rights another way, according to the lawsuit (PDF: Cisco's trademark complaint.)

Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel at Cisco, said in an interview that the companies were close to finalizing a deal Monday night that would have allowed both Cisco and Apple to use the iPhone name. One aspect of the agreement called for some sort of technical interoperability between Cisco's Linksys Internet telephony products and Apple's cell phone. Chandler said the hope was that by making the products interoperable, it would help alleviate confusion among customers, who would likely be target consumers for both products.

The companies left the negotiating table at 8 p.m. Monday with only a few points left to negotiate, Chandler said. Then on Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at the Macworld Expo and, amid much fanfare, unveiled the new "iPhone."

"We indicated that it was important that the negotiations be completed before the launch of their product," Chandler said. "Our expectation was that our name wouldn't be used without permission. And it is a surprise when any large company announces a product using a name they don't have a right to use."

Chandler said Cisco made it clear after Apple's launch that negotiations needed to be completed immediately, but he said Cisco has still not heard from Apple.

Cisco is seeking an injunction that will prevent Apple from using the name as well as damages from the company, the lawsuit said.

Fresh off one of the biggest launches in its history, a product Jobs called one of the most exciting products he's ever worked on, the company dug in its heels. "We think Cisco's trademark suit is silly...We believe (their) trademark registration is tenuous at best," said Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman.

"There are already several companies using the iPhone name for VoIP (voice over IP) products," Kerris said. "We're the first company ever to use iPhone for a cell phone. If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're confident we'll prevail."

Credit: Linksys
Linksys iPhone Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 when it acquired Infogear, a small Redwood City, Calif., start-up that developed consumer devices that allowed people to easily access the Internet without a PC. Infogear had actually registered the iPhone trademark in March 1996. Cisco's home networking division, Linksys, has been using the iPhone trademark on a new family of voice over IP phones since early last year, Cisco said. And last month, Linksys expanded the iPhone family with additional products.

A British company called Orate Telecommunications Services also offers a VoIP phone called an iPhone, and closer to home, a San Jose, Calif., company called Teledex offers an iPhone for hotel rooms.

Chandler said Cisco is aware that other companies have used the iPhone name and in the past Cisco has been involved in "enforcement actions involving the use of this name."

For more than a year, Apple watchers have speculated about a new phone developed by Apple that would combine smart phone cellular technology with the full functionality of an iPod music and video player. Fans and bloggers had been referring to an Apple-designed cell phone as the iPhone for some time, and Apple's repeated attempts at obtaining the trademark make it clear Apple hoped to use the moniker as well.

Cisco said in its complaint that Apple had first approached the company about acquiring the rights to the iPhone trademark in 2001. Over the years, Apple continued to make requests for the rights, including several attempts in 2006, Cisco said.

"Each time, Apple was told that Cisco was not interested in ceding the mark to Apple," Cisco's complaint reads.

Apple apparently was not willing to accept Cisco's decision, so it created a Wilmington, Del.-based front company called Ocean Telecom Services that applied to use the trademark in the U.S. on September 26, 2006, according to Cisco's complaint. That company, Cisco says in the filing, is "owned or otherwise controlled by Apple and is the alter ego of Apple." Around the same time on September 19, 2006, Apple also filed for the trademark for iPhone in Australia.

In Ocean Telecom Services' U.S. filing and in Apple's Australian filing, each company refers to a trademark filing made on March 27, 2006, in Trinidad & Tobago. In its complaint, Cisco said that it's the reference to this document that is almost identical in each filing that leads the company to believe Ocean Telecom is actually owned by Apple.

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-I thought this was very interesting because most people dont know that Cisco came out with this idea first in 2000. Everyone is giving Apple creditfor this amazing phone, so Ciscois suing Apple over the computer maker's use of the iPhone trademark. In the article it says that Cisco said in its complaint that Apple had first approached the company about acquiring the rights to the iPhone trademark in 2001. Over the years, Apple continued to make requests for the rights, including several attempts in 2006 and Cisco kept saying no, but they obviously still used it.

--- Renata Levin