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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Tampa Tribune Vs St Petersburg Times

I file this under frivolous.

The Tampa Tribune filed a lawsuit against the St. Petersburg Times over the over name of the weekly Tampa Bay Times. Which most people know as tbt. The lawsuit doesn't have much of a chance. Editor and Publisher reports the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ended the Trib's patent for Tampa Times because they haven't used the name in 3 years. The paper has never owned a patent for Tampa Bay Times.

Tribune publisher Gil Thelen said, "The Tampa Times has been ours for a long time. If someone puts out a publication that will confuse people, we act to protect our interest. I am confident we will prevail." This reminds of Fox News threatened to file a lawsuit against The Simpsons over a parody of the news network. Fox News contended a news crawl on a cartoon show would confuse people into thinking they were watching Fox News. Feel free to insert your own punchline.

1 comment:

  1. I think that it was a dumb trial, in fact not the trial but the whole situation was a little childish.

    ReplyDelete