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[ShaolinD]

Forgive me as I have no legal knowledge whatsoever.

I am a t-shirt printer and am interested in printing shirts with an electronic musical instrument on them called the Suzuki Omnichord. Doing a search on trademarkia.com lists the trademark status of the product as ABANDONED-FAILURE TO RESPOND OR LATE RESPONSE. This product has been out of production for many years now and I don't believe suzuki uses the name anymore. My question is what do I need to do to determine weather or not I can use the Name omnichord and the likeness of the actual product on a t-shirt?


Thanks ahead of time?

[Trademarkroom.com]

Dear Shaolin,

In the UK, even if the mark has expired on the register the rights in the mark may still be with the original proprietor.  These rights come from using the mark, registration helps enforce your rights as a proprietor via the Trade Marks Act 1994.  If the original proprietor is still using the mark he will own the rights.  They will also have existing rights if they have stopped using the mark within the past 5 years.  You should contact the original proprietor and discuss it with them.  Otherwise you could be liable for trade mark infringement and be pervented from using the mark in the future.

I hope this helps.

Owen

I can be contacted by email at owen@trademarkroom.com

Disclaimer: This post does not constitute legal advice.

[Kaitlin]

I am a t-shirt printer and am interested in printing shirts with an electronic musical instrument on them called the Suzuki Omnichord. Doing a search on trademarkia.com lists the trademark status of the product as ABANDONED-FAILURE TO RESPOND OR LATE RESPONSE. This product has been out of production for many years now and I don't believe suzuki uses the name anymore. My question is what do I need to do to determine weather or not I can use the Name omnichord and the likeness of the actual product on a t-shirt?

Hi,

First, patent won't be an issue unless you're actually producing or selling the instrument.  (Although depending on where you got your picture of the instrument from, copyright could be an issue for you.)

As for trademarks, in the US -- as apparently is the case in the UK according to Trademarkroom.com -- rights in the mark come from use of the mark.  So the fact that a mark is abandoned on the trademark register doesn't necessarily mean it's free to be used. 

If the former owner of the trademark, or someone else who's taken over it in the interim, is still using the mark, then there may or may not be a conflict.   The standard for trademark infringement is "likelihood of confusion."  So the question would be whether or not customers could likely think the T-shirts are made by or sponsored by another company who has a trademark claim on the picture of the instrument or it's name.  And if someone is just referring to the trademark brand, without there being any likely confusion as to sponsorship, that's a "nominal" use, not a trademark use.  That is, other people can use the word(s) to talk about the brand, they just can't sell goods likely to be confused with the brand owner's goods under the same brand or a similar brand that's likely to be confused with it. 

Since many companies use T-shirts as advertising for their goods, however, the use of someone else's mark on a T-shirt can get complicated. 

Try searching "T-shirt" in the trademark forum search box.  That should pull up a number of threads discussing various aspects of the issue.