(photo: iStockPhoto)

This is an older news item, but I wanted to put in my two cents, because of The Very Special Place In My Heart™ that belongs to trademark lawyers. (Spoiler alert: I hate trademark lawyers.) (Hates them, precious, yes, we hates them!)

The Brooklyn Paper sez:

Bay Ridge’s beloved Southern Comfort — a rock band best known for its versions of Southern-fried classics by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, and the Outlaws — has been ordered to shelve its moniker by the makers of a frat-house booze that owns the copyright.

I have a theory about trademark lawyers. I think that trademark lawyers were young, Machiavellian hot shots that fancied themselves after Tom Cruise in The Firm (or Tom Cruise in anything, really). And then realized those kinds of jobs required (a) an Ivy law degree, (b) a family connection, and (c) the sale of one’s soul to the slime of the world (wait, that one probably wasn’t the deal-breaker), and they got stuck lawyering trademarks to pay off their student loans.

Courts have upheld the rights of copyright owners in cases when other businesses’ use of the same name confuses the public, so [Southern Comfort™ Brand liqueur's] legal argument is fairly routine.

I have another theory about trademark lawyers. They’re underworked. Oh, if you ask one, they will vehemently disagree, but they only feel busy because they invent so much work for themselves. There aren’t enough legitimate trademark issues or infringements to make up a full time job, so to pass the time, they suck the life out of the spirit of the law and pick stupid fights over non-existent infringements. Like this one.

“The Southern Comfort brand has a strong connection with music, and the public associates the Southern Comfort brand and its products with music,” lawyer Jill Jacobs said in a Sept. 2 letter to the band’s guitarist, Eddie Sarkis.

Uh, no, it doesn’t.

“Your band members’ use of ‘Southern Comfort’ in your band’s name … is likely to cause the public to mistakenly believe that you are associated with, authorized by, or sponsored by Southern Comfort Properties when they are not.”

Uh, no. It won’t.

Seriously, Southern Comfort™ Brand liqueur. We know your alcohol makes us stupid, but it doesn’t make us thaaaat stupid.

The spirit of the law here is that another beverage company cannot make, say, a soda, and call it Southern Comfort. Nor can the sweatshops of Chinatown distill a cheap knockoff, put a Southern Comfort-looking label on it, and sell it on Canal Street. The idea that Southern Comfort™ Brand liqueur equals music is the construct of a bored trademark lawyer’s imagination. I hate trademark lawyers. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate them.

(BK Southie expects to hear from Southern Comfort™ Brand liqueur’s trademark lawyers about this blog. Yeah, well. First Amendment’s a bitch, isn’t it, y’all?)

Tags: Southern Comfort