“Bitcoin” Trademark Opposition 30-Day Extension Filed

An “intent-to-use” trademark application has been filed for the term “BITCOIN” to sell shot glasses and decanters. An extension to oppose the Bitcoin trademark application has been filed and granted. An automatic 30-day extension is granted by just requesting an extension and is available until December 11.

The trademark application by Urban Trend, LLC of California. It appears a related company represented by the same attorney as the Bitcoin filing has had legal issues Hexbug intellectual property: http://www.hexbug.com/news/2010/05/11/innovation-first-sues-urban-trend-for-infringing-intellectual-property-on-the-hexbug-nano-toy/

A Bitcoin trademark, even for goods and services unrelated to the currency is problematic. Reports of domain names being rejected due to the parent company of Mt. Gox trademark Bitcoin trademark registrations in Europe and Japan. Reports have indicated that some domain name registrations were blocked due to Bitcoin being on the ICANN Trademark Clearinghouse list.

Since Bitcoin is centralized nobody is in charge of protecting the “brand.” Trademark registrations for Bitcoin without some other identifier could be very problematic to new or small Bitcoin businesses. The Bitcoin Foundation discussed looking into these matters about 18 months ago but there seems to be no activity in this area.

A draft opposition notice has been developed and comments are requested. The filing is due by January 10.