An app developer appears to have prevailed in a long-running trademark war against the US president’s business operation.<\/p>\n
The creator of iTrump first clashed with the Trump Organization\u00a0in January 2011<\/a>, when the billionaire’s lawyers alleged the trumpet simulator’s name falsely suggested a link to the tycoon.<\/p>\n After defeating this claim, the developer then went on the attack.<\/p>\n And this resulted<\/a>\u00a0in the company losing a key trademark of its own last week.<\/p>\n On 11 August, the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancelled the New York-headquartered company’s exclusive right to use “Trump” in relation to entertainment services, including reality TV shows.<\/p>\n The ruling followed earlier victories by San Francisco-based Tom Scharfeld, in which he prevented the Trump Organization from owning the exclusive right to use “Trump”\u00a0in connection with<\/a>\u00a0computer games, golf-related mobile apps and music streaming.<\/p>\n What are trademarks?<\/strong><\/p>\n Trademarks are the distinctive name or symbol used to identity a product made by a manufacturer or a good distributed by a dealer.<\/p>\n Trademark law is generally concerned with avoiding consumer confusion regarding the origin or manufacturer of a product.<\/p>\n To trademark an existing word, the applicant needs to demonstrate they have given it new meaning and that there would not be grounds for confusion with other marks.<\/p>\n The Bloomberg news agency\u00a0was first to report<\/a>\u00a0last week’s development.<\/p>\n It brings to an\u00a0end the legal action<\/a>\u00a0between Mr Scharfeld’s company Spoonjack and the US president’s conglomerate, assuming neither side launches a fresh claim.<\/p>\n Mr Scharfeld had represented himself, which required teaching himself about trademark law.<\/p>\n He told Bloomberg that he believed Mr Trump’s legal team “didn’t seem to respect that I could do this”.<\/p>\n “I just wanted to be treated fairly,” he said.<\/p>\n He added that he now planned to spend more of his time marketing his music apps rather than defending them.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"