16 January 2015Trademarks

‘Je suis Charlie’ trademark applicant speaks out

A man who has attempted to trademark ‘Je suis Charlie’ in the US has told WIPR he is confident the application will be accepted and that he has sent a cease-and-desist email to the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

Santa Monica-based Steven Stanwyck and Kelly Ashton have applied to register the mark in class 35 for advertising and communications services in class 35, to “promote charitable giving”, at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Speaking to WIPR in the days after the application, filed on January 9, Stanwyck, who is listed as the attorney of record for it, said he saw “no reason” why the application should be rejected.

“For us, the ‘Je suis Charlie’ reaction to this terrorist attack on these long continuing ‘commercial freedom of speech’ issues was much more a cry for the need for the education, spreading, reconciliation and mutual respect of faiths,” Stanwyck said.

He added: “While in a nascent stage, using ‘Je suis Charlie’ as a positive from the unacceptable, we hope to provide a faith-directed, positive organisation for the mutual respect, worship, recognition and education about man's many ways of worshiping and living by their faiths and rules of ethics.”

Stanwyck added that he has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Charlie Hebdo, although it is unclear on what grounds.

Since last week there have been numerous attempts to trademark the term, which was popularised in the aftermath of an attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Gunmen killed 12 people in the attack.

The attack prompted thousands of Paris residents to pour onto the streets to proclaim the message ‘Je suis Charlie’ (I am Charlie).

Earlier this week, WIPR reported that a trademark application for the term had been filed at the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property, which administers trademarks and designs for Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

It then emerged that France’s IP office, the National Institute of Industrial Property, had rejected 50 trademark applications for the phrase because “they do not meet the criterion of distinctive character”.

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