The Anchor Plate : Intellectual Property Lawyers & Attorneys : BrickHouse Law Group : Open-Price Lawyering, Hourly Billing : St. Louis, Missouri

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My home town of St. Louis, Missouri is known for many things: the Arch, the Cardinals, Toasted Ravioli and floods, just to name a few.  Recently it's also become known for some high-profile trademark infringement lawsuits.  In just the last month, two big name cases were filed and a third threatened -- all involving well-known trademarks and well-financed parties (on one side of each case).  Call it a season of giving for local trademark lawyers! (Disclosure -- we're not involved in any of the cases, but we know attorneys in all three).

First it was The North Face v. The South Butt, asking the age-old question: Can you tell the difference between a face and a butt?

Only days later, we saw Bing! Information Design v. Microsoft, filed on December 16.  The Plaintiff is a small local advertising and web marketing agency which has been using the Bing! trademark since 2000.  This is a fairly straight-forward infringement case.  The marks are identical and the local agency is clearly the senior user -- the only issue is whether the marketplace for the respective goods and services (design services vs. a search engine) overlap enough to cause confusion.  Microsoft claims not to be concerned (they rarely are), but we'll have to see.

 Finally, just last week, news broke of a cease and desist letter sent by attorneys for Peabody Energy to an individual operating a website parodying (and mocking) the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization, of which Peabody is a member.  As I write, the offending website appears to be gone, so perhaps the letter worked. 

Is it our great tasting water? Do we have a new flood, or just a trickle? Stay tuned.