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

I learned early on in my "musical career" (I love saying that!) that if I was willing to just play rhythm guitar, I always had a place in the band. That's me in the blue hat, playing with my law school band at the late, lamented King Louie's in St. Louis, before it was the elegant restaurant it later became.

Like many budding rockstars, we thought we sounded way better than we actually did, and we had to have a cool band name. Being dorky law students, we couldn't resist taking a name from Torts class: "Attractive Nuisance." That's right--as a band, we were a swimming pool without a fence.

Those fond memories of coolness came flooding back to me the other day when I saw this article in the ABA Journal about trademark challenges surrounding rock band names. Apparently all the cool band names have been taken by other bands, or else they are trademarks for some other class of goods or services, like Captain America. What's the next great band to do?

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A day late and probably many dollars short, I'm late with the Character of the Week because I've been trying to instill a love of the modern Olympics in my nine-year-old son. Does anybody else notice a difference in interest based on age? That is why my Character of the week is (are) the Olympic Mascots.

And yes, I mean all of the "official" mascots. The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics has all of the prior mascots collected here, and it has an explanation of its own successful mascots here. From the summer of '72 when "Waldi" the multi-colored dachshund was the mascot chosen to represent the resistance, tenacity, and agility of the athletes and express the gaiety and joy of the Olympic festival in Munich through today, each host-city Olympic organizing committee has used a character or group of characters to represent the brand for their particular games. An extremely difficult task, more often criticized than praised, each mascot must be created, designed, introduced and retired in something less than six years. The mascots are the subject of an immense marketing drive and, if the committees who own them have their way, a proportionately large return on the investment.

A mascot is often developed as a fictional spokes-model to represent a brand. As characters representing brand identity, mascots operate as trademarks. Like other marks, mascots must be protected with a vigilant, enforcement effort or the investment mascot can be easily wiped away. The intense exposure for Olympic mascots means they need to be tough. As the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games progress, they present a case study in mascot creation, enforcement, and protection as the value of the Vancouver mascots is threatened by an Internet meme.

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Have you ever driven by a construction site and wondered "Who actually knows what's going on here?" Somebody must. Even the Empire State Building was completed ahead of schedule.  But what does this have to do with a law practice? 

The other day we had a very productive meeting with a client for whom we had just completed a fixed-fee engagement. That engagement had been short in duration, limited by a date-certain event, and we were able to meet the client's needs at a price all agreed was reasonable and appropriate.

We were very happy, then, when the client engaged us again. At first, however, this new project appeared to be more open-ended, with less clearly defined parameters, and we grappled a bit with how to price it. Nevertheless, by the end of our meeting, we all felt fairly comfortable that we had defined what was in the engagement and what was not. 

When we got back to the office, we started to identify the specific tasks needed to achieve the client's goals, how much time they would take, who would do what, and--most importantly--how we would keep ourselves on task to make sure we could deliver the quality the client expected in an efficient manner. In short--how were we going to manage this project?

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Sunday, I was a guest on The Podge Cast. I'll let you know when that session is up on their site. We talked about a number of things, including how individuals may use right of publicity and trademark to protect their fame. I blurted out that I would start a related, recurring feature on this blog about how fictional characters protect their fame.

That's right. Some fictional characters start to take on a life of their own and there are a number of legal rights that protect intellectual property interests in characters. It is something I have spent a lot of time doing and I enjoy it enough that it makes sense to write about at least once a week. So here goes. My first character of the week: Kermit the Frog.

As with many of the iconic characters in popular culture, Kermit evolved over time. Originally a faintly defined reptile or amphibian sock puppet with ping-pong-ball eyes, Kermit acquired additional traits and greater definition over time. Eventually, he came to be known as an anthropomorphic frog who grew up in a swamp and traveled across the country to make it big in show business, His fame grew from a local D.C. area TV station, to nationwide appearances on public television on Sesame Street for the Children's Television Workshop, to fronting the prime-time broadcast of The Muppet Show on a major broadcast network, to Hollywood stardom in a bio-pic on the silver screen.

We watched his career grow from TV-news correspondent, to variety-show host, to actor, director and producer. At the same time, we learned about his fears, friendships, and loves. He is the shy celebrity, uncomfortable with fame. But, he became so famous that the world has a hard time telling where fiction ends and reality begins. Last fall, he escorted Lady Gaga to the MTV Video Awards and with a kiss, created a scandal that earned him an interview with People magazine.

Just as with any real-life celebrity, the fame associated with Kermit is a valuable, intangible property. Intellectual-property law protects that value in a number of ways.

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Online comic book store Heavy Ink gave a strong response to Olivia Munn's attorneys: "shove it." Olivia Munn is co-host of G4's Attack of the Show, an actress, and most recently the cover model for January's Maxim. Her attorneys are opposed to Heavy Ink's sale of the Celebrity Showdown Olivia Munn One Shot #1 comic from creator Brian Denham and Antarctic Press. 

In their cease and desist (jpg), Ms. Mann's attorneys demanded that Heavy Ink, the seller, take down a webpage link for the comic book and demanded that they destroy all copies of the comic. Don't know if her attorneys have gone after the publisher. They addressed their demands to Heavy Ink's DMCA Agent, which may have confused the folks at Heavy Ink into thinking that this was a copyright issue. It is not. Ms. Mann asserts her exclusive rights to "use or exploit her image and/or name in any manner whatsoever." This invokes the right of publicity, not copyright.

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Sometimes you get lucky and get to work on something that you just feel good about. 

That's the case right now.  We're helping some good friends with an amazing project that's all about turning horrible grief into something lasting and uplifting.  Please check out The Angel Band Project -- a very special project and a cool blog, too.

This is a great example of talented, compassionate people coming together to create something bigger than themselves, and bigger than the tragedy that first devastated -- then motivated -- them.  It is a powerfully moving tribute to a brave lost friend, to be sure, but it has also grown into much more than that.  In part that's because of the fantastic mix of music being created, but also because of the charitable cause it will support. 

Geoff and I are proud to be doing a small part, but many others are donating their time and talent as well -- just check out this latest post about last weekend's recording session in Chicago and all of the really cool people involved. 

Want more information?  You can read the Angel Band Project's blog, follow them on Twitter, or become a fan of their Facebook page.  It's their story, not ours.  Suffice to say that if you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual violence, this project will be especially meaningful. 

If you just love good music made well, then I bet you'll dig it, too.

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