{"id":371,"date":"2018-10-17T10:51:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T14:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=371"},"modified":"2018-10-17T10:51:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T14:51:23","slug":"game-of-groans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"Game of Groans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HBO, the producers of the popular television series GAME OF THRONES has filed an opposition [<a href=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thorns.pdf\">91244050<\/a>] against two trademark applications filed by The Trustees of Rancho Santa Ana\u00a0Botanic Garden to register the marks GAME OF THORNS and this stylized version:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thorns.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-372 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thorns.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"221\" height=\"131\" \/><\/a>HBO alleges that the Botanic Garden&#8217;s use of GAME OF THORNS is likely to cause confusion:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thrones_v_Thorns.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-373 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thrones_v_Thorns.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"461\" height=\"167\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>However unless the thought is that consumers won&#8217;t notice the difference between THRONES and THORNS, or are likely to believe that HBO misspelled its name, confusion seems unlikely.\u00a0 HBO also alleges dilution:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thrones_v_Thorns2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-374 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Thrones_v_Thorns2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"453\" height=\"120\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It does not seem that a botanic garden is likely to tarnish the image of the world of\u00a0Westeros and Essos, and as with the likelihood of confusion, tarnishment by blurring would seem to require that consumers won&#8217;t notice the difference between THRONES and THORNS, or are likely to believe that HBO misspelled its name.<\/p>\n<p>The Botanic Garden is\u00a0 clearly making a pun &#8212; one of those groan-inducing jokes based on words that sound similar but have dissimilar meanings.\u00a0 While many regard puns as the lowest form of humor, are they prohibited by trademark law?\u00a0 It seems that if most people get the joke, there can be no likelihood of confusion or dilution, because getting the joke relies upon knowing the difference between a throne and a thorn.\u00a0\u00a0Not getting the joke, however, might indicate at last a possibility of confusion, and trademark law might apply.<\/p>\n<p>While we don&#8217;t want trademark law interfering with good jokes, if it can stop bad jokes, that&#8217;s probably a good thing.\u00a0 We\u00a0will have to wait to see whether or not the TTAB gets the joke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HBO, the producers of the popular television series GAME OF THRONES has filed an opposition [91244050] against two trademark applications filed by The Trustees of Rancho Santa Ana\u00a0Botanic Garden to register the marks GAME OF THORNS and this stylized version: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=371\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-likelihood-of-confusion","category-oppositions","category-use-of-third-party-trademarks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}