"SOARING" possibly in legal jeoprady

Bob Thompson wrote in message ...
A feature article in the Durango Herald newspaper (Durango, Colorado) =
this morning about a 5 star resort north of town, Tall Timber, really =
caught my attention. They now offer an "extreme sport" of Peter Pan- =
like zipping down through the trees hanging from a wire that they call =
"SOARING"... and they have their lawyers "busily filing for patents and =
the COPYRIGHT TO THE NAME, SOARING". If they get this copyright of the =
name of our sport of "soaring", the name of the SSA, the name of the =
ASA, the name of Turf Soaring, Arizona Soaring, Soaring magazine, etc. =
may well have to be liscensed from these folks. =20

I'd say this is something perhaps a batch of "soaring" lawyers would =
want to look into pronto. Any copyright or patent lawyers involved in =
soaring got any comments? After all, we DO live in a VERY litigeous =
society / country.


A single word such as 'soaring' is too short to be protected by
copyright. The editors of that newspaper certainly SHOULD have
been aware of that.

They may be able to register "SOARING" (all caps) as a trademark
for their 'sport' but that won't give them rights to soaring any
more than hormel's trademark 'SPAM' carries over to email spam.

--

FF

A single word such as 'soaring' is too short to be protected by
copyright. The editors of that newspaper certainly SHOULD have
been aware of that.

They may be able to register "SOARING" (all caps) as a trademark
for their 'sport' but that won't give them rights to soaring any
more than hormel's trademark 'SPAM' carries over to email spam.

Rooibos (redbush) is a form of tea grown in South Africa for many
years. It is an Afrikaans word but is accepted in the English language
as well as there is no other English word for the drink. It is very
popular in South Africa (you battle to get a decent cup of regular tea
at a typical Afrikaans household) and is sold locally by many
producers. Some person has however copyrighted the word in America and
is now the only person allowed to market rooibos in America under that
name. No South African thought such a move was possible as it is like
copyrighting the word coffee and then forcing everybody else who sells
coffee to sell it under another name. It is amazing what can be pushed
through the American legal system. Rooibos and Soaring both have seven
letters so I don't think that there is anything that protects a single
word from becoming copyrighted.

Clinton
LAK 12