Here’s something that’s a bit strange: Leica filed a trademark application for “M11″ this past May, just a few months before announcing the Leica M — a camera that did away with the company’s number-based naming strategy used since 1954.
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Argentinian photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg started as a photojournalist before turning to documentary photography and developing his trademark style of shooting under moonlight and using strobes and long exposures to illuminate his subjects. His portrait subjects are asked to remain motionless for long periods of time as he photographs them using a large format film camera. He recently applied his style to a series on residents of Northern Kenya — a location that’s typically photographed under the harsh midday sun.
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Ever wonder how George Eastman chose the name “Kodak” for the company he founded?
The letter “K” had been a favorite of Eastman’s, he is quoted as saying, “it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter.” He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, one cannot mispronounce it, and it could not resemble anything or be associated with anything but Kodak. [#]
In 1907, Kodak became the first company to integrate its name and look into a symbol, and starting in the 1930′s, Kodak adopted yellow and red as its “trade dress” colors.
Even though it seems like the photo sharing market is saturated with services competing for the world’s photos, the incredible growth of many young companies (e.g. Instagram) shows that there’s still plenty of untapped areas for growth, with mobile sharing being one of the big ones at the moment. A trademark for “Photovine” filed by Google earlier this month seems to suggest that the search giant is looking to expand beyond Picasa.
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In November 2010, Talking Points Memo published an article that included a wire photo taken on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. Yesterday they received a cease and desist letter from the NYSE claiming that photos of the trading floor cannot be displayed without the NYSE’s permission, and that it owns trademark rights to images of the floor:
NYSE has common law and Federal trademark rights in and to NYSE’s name and images of the Trading Floor [...] NYSE owns Federal tradmark rights in one depiction of the Trading Floor and common law rights in the Trading Floor viewed from virtually any angle [...] Accordingly, NYSE has the right to prevent unauthorized use of its Trademarks and reference to NYSE by others. [#]
You can read the two page C&D letter here. What are your thoughts on this?
(via Boing Boing)
Image credit: NYSE trading floor (tilt-shifted) by champura
Five years after acquiring the photo sharing service Flickr, Yahoo has finally obtained ownership of the domain name Flicker.com.
One of the common characteristics of Web 2.0 companies is the use of misspelled words in their name, since the correctly spelled words are typically too pricey for a bootstrapped web startup to purchase early on.
Flickr was one such company, settling for the now ubiquitous name after being unable to purchase Flicker.com.
As you might expect, the enormous popularity of Flickr has led to an absurd amount of traffic for Flicker.com, as people often type in the domain name either as a typo or being ignorant of the “correct” spelling”.
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Earlier this month we reported on 48 Hour Magazine, a new project that aims to put together each magazine in only 48 hours from start to finish. The team of editors include Heather Champ and Derek Powazek, the founding editors of JPG Magazine.
Shortly after completing “Issue Zero”, they’ve received a cease and desist letter from the lawyers at CBS for trademark violation. The company owns trademarks for their news magazine television series “48 Hours”, and the related “48 Hours Mystery”.
According to the New York Times, 48 Hour Magazine never looked into the legality of the name, nor did they form a corporation. The proceeds of the $10 magazine (which they’ve sold over 1,000 copies of) will be split according to a transparent (albeit semi-complicated) formula.
The magazine has hired a lawyer to represent them, but does not plan to put up a fight, opting to work with CBS to come to an agreement. Since their website 48hourmag.com might soon go offline, they’ve set up a page at has48hrmagbeenshutdown.com to keep readers informed.
Just as the Winter Olympics are heating up international competition in Vancouver this week, the U.S. has suffered a bit of a statistical loss to non-American companies on home turf: American-owned companies have captured far fewer U.S. patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2009. U.S. corporations hold about 49% of all U.S. utility patents in 2009, while non-U.S. firms hold the majority.
In a repeat of last year’s trend, major Asian companies, such as South Korea’s Samsung, Japan’s Canon, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony and Seiko Epson have snagged a spot in the top ten in number of patents issued in 2009, according to the IFI Claims Patent Services ranking.
An interesting note: out of the top 10 on the list, many, such as Canon (viewfinder patent sketch featured above), Panasonic, are diverse companies whose products include printers and televisions, but have a notable stake in the consumer camera industry. Fujifilm, a Japanese-owned company dedicated to consumer camera products alone, placed 19th on the top 50 list as well.
Though the sheer number of patents does imply an accelerated growth and company innovation with an intent to bring the products to a consumer market, the press release notes that America has held its own considering the recession climate that still lingers:
Although the margin of patent dominance between U.S. and non-U.S. firms is slight and has been for several years, there is no uncertainty that foreign firms are adding patents at a frenetic pace. ”Interest in protecting corporate intellectual property has become intense both in the U.S. and abroad, and as a result we’re seeing an increased level of patent activity,” continued [general manager of IFI Patent Intelligence Darlene] Slaughter. ”The silver lining may be that the high priority foreign firms place on U.S. patents is a confirmation of the value and importance that the U.S. market represents.”
U.S. companies, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard held top spots on the rank as well, at 1st, 3rd, 8th, and 10th, respectively.
