[Random-bits] Santa Clause: the Trademark

[James Love]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 21:15 +0100 (BST)
From: Wendy Grossman <wendyg@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Santa Clause:  the Trademark

Got a press pack today from the people at www.Santa-Claus.com saying 
they applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office in April 1999 to 
trademark both the terms "Santa Claus" and "Father Christmas" (the 
latter being in extremely common usage in the UK) for online retail 
stores.  This class of trademark is not available in the UK.  This 
trademark has now been awarded to Stephen Bottomley, a former artist and 
owner of a recording studio (it says here), and a Web developer with a 
company called Click and Tell Media Ltd.  He has, the press pack says, 
registered a number of other festive domain names.  The 
www.santa-claus.com Web site was set up in 1998 and now will add a 
department store to it for the holiday season 2000.

Quoth Bottomley in the press release:  "The trademarking of these names 
will effectively future proof my business should proposed domain 
suffixes such as .web or .shop become a reality and further strengthen 
the barriers to entry regarding competition in the USA.  In addition, 
the TM will also help shoppers come straight to my legitimate site for 
the Christmas needs and shopping, particularly when using sophisticated 
but user friendly search engines such as Real Names and their partners."

I note through searching on Betterwhois (http://www.betterwhois.com) 
that santaclaus.com is reserved for an outfit in Florida and santa.com 
is reserved for someone in San Jose.   

But that's not the point.  The point is that it's ridiculous that such a 
trademark was ever granted.  The press release notes that there was a 
30-day period for public comment, which apparently no one noticed.  Are 
we now going to see Bottomley's lawyers trying to put every electronic 
Santa's grotto out of business?

wg