A Frenchman has the best claim to the worst and truest symbol of the ’70s: smiley, but other people still try to own him, knowing that if they succeed, they can rake in millions, possibly billions, in licensing fees from nearly everyone, including Walmart.

The Walmart is not pleased.

From Las Vegas Trademark Attorney:

An Illinois district court has denied a motion to dismiss filed by Franklin Loufrani and The Smiley Company SPRL (together “Smiley”) seeking dismissal of numerous counterclaims brought by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (“Wal-Mart”) in Smiley’s action under 15 U.S.C. § 1071(b)(1) seeking judicial review of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (“TTAB”) final decision dismissing Smiley’s opposition to Wal-Mart’s trademark application. See Loufrani et al v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105575 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 12, 2009). For background on the long running dispute and the TTAB decision leading up to the lawsuit by Smiley, see my prior blog post here and John Welch’s post on The TTABlog.

I get how much all of this is worth, but people, people, people, it’s a damn smiley face for feck sake.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 1421 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Litigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.