ALSA Withdraws “Ice Bucket Challenge” Trademark Applications

By now you have more than likely seen videos depicting or may have at least heard about the “ice bucket challenge.” If not, the “ice bucket challenge” refers to a viral social media phenomenon where countless people and several celebrities have recorded themselves dumping icy water on their heads as a means of raising awareness and funds to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“ALS”), commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which affects the brain and spinal cord. The online sensation has been credited with raising more than $94 million for the ALS Association (“ALSA”) in less than one month.

Despite the success of the fundraising and awareness campaign, ALSA did not create the challenge and recently came under fire when it was revealed that the non-profit had filed trademark applications to register the phrases “ice bucket challenge” and “ALS ice bucket challenge” with the U.S. Trademark Office.

While ALSA released a statement claiming that the creators of the “ice bucket challenge” had consented to ALSA’s applications and given their blessings, the general public at large clearly did not feel the same way. While ALSA may have indeed intended to protect the two terms from future misuse (as it claims), many see the attempt to register the trademarks as a means of securing marketing rights associated with the terms.

This is unfortunate because while some companies do “bully” others with their intellectual property rights, trademark registrations are still a legitimate means of protecting terms and phrases that become linked to a particular company or source of goods or services.

In this case, while it is true that if the trademarks had successfully registered, a third party’s use of “ice bucket challenge” could become actionable. At the same time, a federal registration would also allow the ALSA to police and shut down fake campaigns trying to palm off the goodwill of the mark. An example of such “palming off” would be the numerous fraudulent Facebook campaigns that solicited donations through the Internet for children purported to be hurt in the Boston marathon bombings.

Source: http://fortune.com/2014/08/29/als-trademark-ice-bucket-challenge/

For more information on this topic, please visit our trademark law service page.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX.  The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.  The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution.  Additional information about the IP law firm and its IP law attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

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