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lawsuit against Taurus

Over the new Mare’s leg designs.

Posted in uncategorized on September 23rd, 2010 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |

10 Responses to “lawsuit against Taurus”

  1. Jester Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 am

    Interesting, could explain a lot about the delay of the Ranch Hand’s delivery to market (other than Taurus’ usual foot dragging). Unsurprisingly the reporter has some of the background facts re Taurus wrong. Taurus bought Beretta in the 1980’s? Two words: reading comprehension.

  2. ParatrooperJJ Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 10:07 am

    Not quite sure how prior use effects trademarks, anyone know?

  3. Laughingdog Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 11:05 am

    IANAL, but if it’s based off a model used in a 50 year old tv show, I have a hard time understanding how he can claim to own the rights to any gun design that looks like a Mare’s Leg.

  4. Jake Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    IANAL, but if it’s based off a model used in a 50 year old tv show, I have a hard time understanding how he can claim to own the rights to any gun design that looks like a Mare’s Leg.

    IANAL, also, but my understanding is that if you don’t act to protect your trademark, you lose it. So if the tv show producers never acted to protect it (or never tried to claim it), than he can file for it and legally own the rights.

    It’s similar to the reason BBC owns the trademark rights to the blue police box.

    In 1996, the BBC applied for a trademark to use the blue police box design in merchandising associated with Doctor Who. In 1998, the Metropolitan Police filed an objection to the trademark claim, maintaining that they owned the rights to the police box image. In 2002 the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC, pointing out that there was no evidence that the Metropolitan Police—or any other police force—had ever registered the image as a trademark. In addition, the BBC had been selling merchandise based on the image for over three decades without complaint by the police.

  5. Kristopher Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    “Mare’s Leg” as a term for a shortened lever-action, goes back to the 19th Century.

    I don’t see this person winning here.

  6. ParatrooperJJ Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    Jake – That was also the in the UK not the US.

  7. Jake Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    Jake – That was also the in the UK not the US.

    True, but that’s why I only said it was similar. I understand the same principle holds in US law, though, and it is a good example of the basic idea.

  8. 1 With A Bullet Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    Odd that Buchanan hasn’t sued the other manufacturers of Mare’s Legs

    http://www.chiappafirearms.com/product/824

    http://www.legacysports.com/products/puma/puma_bhunterm87shot.html

    I guess it was only when a company offered one cheap enough to be a threat that a lawsuit was required.

  9. SPQR Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 pm

    This paragraph is odd:

    uchanan obtained a federal trademark and in his lawsuit claims “common-law” rights over the use of the Mare’s Leg mark, as well as lever-action firearms of a “particular shape, design, and overall appearance.”

    I’m not in possession of the complaint so I’m assuming that this is bad reporting. Because you can’t claim trademark rights in a functional design or appearance. If something is functional, you can’t trademark it.

    However, its possible that the complaint does make this claim, because I’ve seen a lot of lawfirms that try to make this idea go over judges’ who don’t know trademark law.

  10. Veeshir Says:
    September 23rd, 2010 at 9:55 pm

    You can patent a design, but he shouldn’t have gotten a patent on that design because, as he says, it’s at least 50 years old and probably older.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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