"You're Fired" to be Trump Trademark

[rogerd]

The Content, Writing, & Copyright forum is the intellectual property corner of WebmasterWorld... discussions of what can & can't be trademarked or copyrighted, and how one can use a phrase someone else has registered, crop up a few times a week here. So, I'm sure all will be interested to hear that Donald Trump is filing a trademark application [story.news.yahoo.com] for "You're fired!", his signature phrase from the hit show, The Apprentice.

How can such a common phrase be trademarked? Haven't bosses been saying that for years? (It does seem a bit insensitive in these days of political correctness...;))

The key to trademarking a common word or phrase is to limit its application. Trump plans to use it for apparel, games, and casino services.

Apparently, the phrase has already been used as a trademark by others (or others have applied to use it).

Hence, even if Trump's application is approved, another firm could use the same phrase for a product like fireplace logs without concern. Of course, some companies will claim infringement even when the probability of confusion (the determining factor) is extremely low.

Regardless, on one count you have no worries: you are free to use "You're Fired!" to dismiss unwanted staffers as much as you like, with no royalty payments to The Donald. :)

[Webwork]

Capitalism: Ego as trademark and capital.

Ego has always been part of capitalism. Industries have been built by capitalizing ego, including ego for the masses - exemplified by the delusion that a logo on a shirt makes one special, elite, a member, so much so that people pay 4Xs more for the shirt with the logo than the one without "it".

Donald's overtness makes him the current posterchild for ego. His lawyers, PR people, publicists are (yuk) visionaries. "Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump. We could turn this into a board game (if that wasn't already in the works) and make millions. Imagine your picture on the game. Millions of them. Why, you could be the next Monopoly."

Guild scat, put a spotlight on it, and it's still scat in my book.

A society oblivious to its state of decay is a society in decline.

[edited by: Webwork at 3:09 pm (utc) on Mar. 19, 2004]

[ControlEngineer]

Donald Trump is filing a trademark application for "You're fired!"

I guess if your boss calls you in and says "You're fired!" you can get Trump to sue him!

Actually, this probably means that you can't build a similar TV show around that phrase. I don't think you can start a publication called "Time" but you can use that word in many other ways.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer so I don't know what I'm talking about.

[rogerd]

Actually, ControlEngineer, television production and reality TV shows don't seem to be part of this trademark application. Perhaps if someone were to claim the TV rights for the phrase, it would be the producers of The Apprentice.

Guess you're not a big Trump fan, Webwork? ;) Trump has certainly been known for his ego, but that's also helped his business. I saw a report that buildings with the "Trump" label in NYC command higher rents than equivalent properties. (Folks who question the value of branding, listen up...) But leave it to Trump to create a spinoff venture or two from his new TV career. (Then again, I wonder how he feels about being the name most frequently mentioned in conjunction with the word "bloviate"?)

[One other spinoff that looks like something that could morph into a spat: The Apprentice prominently features the teams using Nextel phones to communicate as they roam NYC. Trump, meanwhile, is doing Verizon cell phone commercials that feature one of the Apprentice losers and a boardroom setting similar to the one in the show. If Nextel paid for placement on the show, I bet they aren't too happy about Trump's satiric takeoff for Verizon.]