Lin, snapped up by the Knicks after many of their stars were injured and when the team was on an embarrassing losing streak, managed to nearly single-handily reverse the team’s fortune. On February 4, Lin managed to help the Knicks to just their third win in fourteen games and starting a winning streak which would soon be known as LINSANITY.

How long Lin can keep up his winning ways is a mystery, but the fame it has generated has already caused some legal headaches. Soon after Lin made his February 4 mark on the NBA, people started to capitalize on the phenomenon. On February 7, Matthew Chang (who has no affiliation with Lin) filed a trademark application for LINSANITY claiming an extensive list of clothing items. Chang has said he would be willing to sell the trademark should Lin (or likely others) be willing to buy it.

Just two days later, on February 9, Lin’s old high school basketball coach Andrew W. Slayton also joined the trademark frenzy. Not only did Slayton apply for the trademark LINSANITY, he registered the domain names www.linsanity.com and www.thejeremylinshow.com to sell t-shirts in 2010, long before the current hype. Slayton said “I always knew Jeremy would be amazing. I believe in this” so much so that Slayton registered the website without Lin’s knowledge or consent.

Even without Lin himself jumping into the trademark fray, it will still take the USPTO several months to sort out who will finally get rights to hawk merchandise under the LINSANITY trademark and if either of the two applications already filed will get any trademark rights at all. Since LINSANITY is so clearly based on a person and his name, the USPTO may require Lin to give consent to one of these application owners for fear of consumers confusingly assuming Lin is connected to the LINSANITY trademark.

Pixar, who has an uncanny ability to create blockbuster movies, will need some of their movie magic to solve a trademark dispute for its upcoming movie Brave. Brave is set in 10th-century Scotland, and features Merida, Pixar’s first female protagonist. The film is scheduled to open on June 22, 2012 yet is currently mired in a growing dispute with Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves over the title of the movie.

The Atlanta Braves have filed a Notice of Opposition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board temporarily blocking Disney (who now owns Pixar) from registering the term “Brave” for a variety of goods and entertainment services covering nine (9) trademark applications. Even though the Atlanta Braves do not own any registered trademark rights to the singular “Brave,” the MLB organization alleges there would be irreparable damage to them. Atlanta claims there would be confusion if Pixar used “Brave” because the singular term “Brave” is often used when referring to a single ball player from the club.

Both the Atlanta Braves and Disney have apparently entered into settlement negotiations to attempt to resolve this dispute. No word on how this trademark disagreement may affect spring training for the Atlanta Braves, who use the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex located at Walt Disney World.

Question for the MLB Braves: After the historic choke job last season, rivaled only by the Boston Red Sox ineptitude and the unforgettable choke-fest put on my my own beloved New York Mets in 2007, why would Pixar, probably the most successful movie production company in the world at turning out consistently great movies, want to be confused with the Atlanta Braves? Also, do kids really think they’re going to see a movie about a baseball team? Seriously? In an unrelated story, Native Americans are suing the Atlanta Braves for commercial disparagement.

Within hours of Suggs creating BSHU, merchandise started to appear online. Three days later, Brian Bussells filed for the trademark “Ball So Hard University” and started to sell clothing. Even Suggs appeared in a press conference wearing a Bussells shirt and acknowledged he had nothing to do with the selling of the shirt. Then, about a week and a half after Suggs first created the name, Suggs’ corporation, Team Sizzle Films, Incorporated, filed five trademark applications for the same trademark as Bussells. Since the filings, cease-and-desists letters have been sent from Suggs’ representatives to others selling BSHU merchandise, although it is not clear if Bussells received one of these letters.

It could be up to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to determine if Bussells or Suggs has priority to the Ball So Hard University trademark. Bussells may be able to prevent Suggs from using a mark Suggs himself coined if the Trademark Office honors Bussells’ earlier filing. However, Suggs’ trademark attorney has suggested arguing that BSHU is apart of his public persona and Bussells’ use of the mark would confuse consumers into believing Suggs is associated with Bussells’ venture. Suggs and Bussells will turn this gridiron fight to the USPTO to find out who will be the mascot of this University.

Originally adopted as a spoof, Black Bear used the trademark “Charbucks” for a new line of dark roast coffee at a time of anti-Starbucks sentiment centered on the coffee goliath’s buying of a popular Boston coffee company. In 1997, Starbucks sent a cease and desist letter and eventually sued Black Bear for trademark dilution because of their use of Charbucks. The first trial held the plaintiffs did not prove their case for dilution. However, on appeal, the case was remanded to the district court to be evaluated under the newly passed Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 (TDRA) that set new standards for dilution.

In the second trial, the court held again there was no trademark dilution. And again, the case was remanded to be considered under a new standard for similarity between marks necessary to show dilution. Finally, in this the third, and perhaps final, trial the court found there was not a sufficient amount of similarity between Charbucks and Starbucks to show dilution. A key factor in the court’s continuing position of no dilution was Black Bear’s using “Charbucks” as part of the mark “Mister Charbucks” or “Charbucks Blend”. Even though the disputed marks are only separated by two letters, that difference was enough for the courts. While there is a chance for Starbucks to appeal, this decade and a half saga may finally be at an end.

Lest my griping sound like sour grapes, I actually care what happens to clients when they are given the misleading impression that they can strip a complex, thought intensive process on which important business decisions are being made into a five minute exercise in filling out a form. Although my examples of YAHOOO and MY GOOGLE are extreme, because most people wouldn’t think that they could use those marks, they are intended to show exactly how useless and harmful at the same time the “do-it-yourself” search window on the trademark mill sites can be. The lack of transparency and any semblance of legal advice makes these services dangerous. Clients are effectively blindly guessing, but leave with the impression that they’ve done a search and can rely on the results. That’s not to say that there isn’t a place in the world for an automated trademark filing service, but the risks and the tradeoffs should be disclosed up-front, so that clients know what the potential consequences of not using an actual trademark attorney are.

The single member panelist also took issue with the fact that the Respondent failed to make use of the domain name in question. Writing for the unanimous panel, Mr. Meyerson proclaimed, “Michelin tires suck, and they suck hard. The Respondent’s failure to say so on an active website was evidence of Respondent’s bad faith.”

Shortly after the decision, Michelin announced its plans to launch a whole new line of “tires that suck.”

This decision marks something utterly non-remarkable in UDRP Land — a mind numbingly bad decision by a Panelist on an issue implicating the constitutional right of free speech. If Rob Terry had a bad experience with Michelin tires and wanted to tell the world that they suck, he had every right to register a domain name — his 21st century soap box, and tell the world. The fact that he didn’t put up a site quickly enough to satisfy the panelist, or spend money on attorneys, does not make him a cybersquatter. Awarding “sucks” names to corporations because they are too thin-skinned to take the heat is not only wrong, it goes against one of the greatest traditions of our country. So Michelin, to you I say, “you suck,” but perhaps no one understands sucking better than the NAF panelist responsible for this slice of injustice.

As a general rule, panelists tend to be more accepting of gripe sites when the registrant has a genuine gripe, and registers a domain name that contains circumlocutions, such as “BankofAmericaSucks.com,” rather than a gripe name that is identical to a trademark. Commercial motive is always a no-no. When in doubt, it’s generally best to consult a domain name attorney first.