... Perry and Harrigan appealed the court ruling, but once again Heinz’s lawyers mostly came out on top. The April 12, 2021 appeals court judgment agrees with the earlier decision that Heinz doesn’t owe Perry anything. But the three judges that signed the decision — Priscilla Owen, of Austin, Texas, who'd been nominated by George W. Bush; Obama nominee James Graves Jr., of Jackson, Mississippi; and Trump nominee James Ho, of Dallas — felt that Perry's trademark for Metchup shouldn’t have been taken away.
The decision to return Perry’s trademark is somewhat surprising. Because the judges seem to suspect that, from the beginning, Perry wasn’t interested in selling condiments at all. Instead, the ruling suggests he may have been hoping a deep-pocketed corporation would come along and buy the title Metchup.
The ruling states that “A reasonable jury could infer that Mr. Perry’s registration and use of the trademark was something other than a sincere, good-faith business effort and something more like a trap that Heinz unwittingly fell into.”
After all, in the past, Perry purchased 1,400 internet domain names and then offered them for sale, a practice the court called “domain squatting.”
In a recent interview, Perry said he had indeed attempted to profit by buying up dot-com addresses for a few bucks each and selling them to companies who wanted them later. He said he succeeded in selling three or four of them for about $3000 each. But that was different from his plans for someday marketing Metchup.
read more (nole)
The decision to return Perry’s trademark is somewhat surprising. Because the judges seem to suspect that, from the beginning, Perry wasn’t interested in selling condiments at all. Instead, the ruling suggests he may have been hoping a deep-pocketed corporation would come along and buy the title Metchup.
The ruling states that “A reasonable jury could infer that Mr. Perry’s registration and use of the trademark was something other than a sincere, good-faith business effort and something more like a trap that Heinz unwittingly fell into.”
After all, in the past, Perry purchased 1,400 internet domain names and then offered them for sale, a practice the court called “domain squatting.”
In a recent interview, Perry said he had indeed attempted to profit by buying up dot-com addresses for a few bucks each and selling them to companies who wanted them later. He said he succeeded in selling three or four of them for about $3000 each. But that was different from his plans for someday marketing Metchup.
read more (nole)
