Arkansas Lottery sued for trademark infringement

Comment #11

KY Floyd — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:38:17 GMT

Why not let Mr. Dozier make products for the Arkansas Lottery?

Becauss he shouldn't be rewarded for being a troll. I see no problem with letting him continue to use most of his trademarks and market the same shirts, but any right to market products which might be confused with official lottery merchandise should be limited to any existing products.

After my previous post I saw this:

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2009/03/who_owns_the_arkansas_lottery.aspx

The page that s... [ More ]

Comment #10

Hermanus104 — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:23:58 GMT

That sounds like a great idea! Why not let Mr. Dozier make products for the Arkansas Lottery? It would be a win-win situation! (No pun intended.

Comment #9

ScubaGolfJim — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:44:46 GMT

The man did some things right, and missed a couple of things also. Since he did actually use the trademark in a business fashion within a year of registration, he made the correct move there. However, most trademarks are protected unless there is a more than 15% difference and there is no direct business conflict. From two words to three words is what, a 33.33% change? And t-shirts and lottery tickets are in two totally different catagories.

Just a little off-subject, but the same type of rul... [ More ]

Comment #8

KY Floyd — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:40:20 GMT

Other than uses that would actually be fraudulent or deceptive advertising, anybody is free to use the state name. It's really no different than using any other geographic description, such as Main Street Cleaners. Since he was using the terms before there was an Arkansas lottery it's very unlikely that any of his uses could be considered fraudulent or deceptive.

I'm not going to bother to read the court papers, I consider most of the material to be nothing more than spin from his lawyer. I d... [ More ]

Comment #7

CARBOB — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:26:52 GMT

Thanks Raven, I was trying to remember the term, Eminent Domain , but couldn't. Before I retired , I did a lot of surveying that involved Eminent Domain , around Florida. I've seen cases where a person lost the business. Even tho they were compensated, financially. I didn't think it was completely fair. A lot of the businesses were small neighborhood types, and couldn't be relocated.There were many cases the state's offer was below fair market vaue and that caused a lot of mitigation.... [ More ]

Comment #6

Raven62 — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:07:53 GMT

The State of Arkansas could exercise eminent domain (the right or power of the state to take or control private property for public use) and the plaintiff would be out of Luck

Comment #5

CARBOB — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:05:51 GMT

I'm not an attorney, but I was always under the impression that an individual could not use any type of advertising or marketing anything that included the state name without the state authorization. What I'm saying is no one but the state owns the the trademark Arkansas Lottery , I maybe wrong, but I will bet that he will lose in any court of law.

Comment #4

Todd — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:22:12 GMT

That was my first thought too, but if you read the court documents and supporting documentation, you'll see he was actively engaged in promoting various merchandise using Arkansas Lottery on it. Such as T-shirts with cute little phrases on them that include the name Arkansas Lottery .

If he's a trademark troll, then he's a very smart one. Troll or not, I think he has a pretty good case, although the lottery might get away with doing nothing because they use Arkansas Scholarship Lottery as the... [ More ]

Comment #3

Littleoldlady — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:33:56 GMT

I agree. I remember when some were buying up the names of state lotteries in the hope that they would be able to cash in. The one thing that most of them left out was the word scholarship . I think it will get thrown out.

Comment #2

KY Floyd — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:46:14 GMT

My money says the guy is a trademark troll who's been squatting on those names while hoping for a nice payday when Arkansas started a lottery. I'm skeptical that the guy is actually doing any business that is likely to be confused with the state lottery. With lotto having been used as the name of lottery games for a lot longer than he claims to have been using it I'm extremely skeptical that he's got a legitimate business use for Arkansas lotto that would prevail in court. Getting a trademark is... [ More ]

Comment #1

duckman — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:28:09 GMT

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court (or a pre-trial settlement).

Since trademark rights are created when the mark is used in commerce, I wonder what the original company's product or service was (which they must have to claim trademark rights)?

Since the Arkansas (state) Lottery is new, I suspect the attorneys for the lottery suggested calling the state lottery the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery in the hope that is was different enough from Arkansas Lottery .... [ More ]

Arkansas Lottery sued for trademark infringement

Lottery Post — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:23:31 GMT

The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery is the target of a lawsuit by a man who claims he owns the trademark to names the state lottery is using.

Ed Dozier of Little Rock filed suit Thursday in Pulaski County Circuit Court, claiming that as far back as 1994 he secured the trademark to Arkansas Lottery and several other similar terms.

Dozier is asking a judge to order the state lottery to stop using the names.

The suit, filed by the Davidson Law Firm in Pulaski County Circuit Court, seeks a dec... [ More ]