Transcription
Justin Bieber's new trademark for his clothing line is refused. Most common rejection that people get. I'm gonna talk more about this over the next four minutes.
I'm Angela Langlotz, trademark and copyright attorney. I go live here on weekdays. If you have trademark or copyright law questions, drop them into the comments below; I'll answer them on a future live video.
So, Justin Bieber has a new clothing line out there's just one problem—he can't get his trademark approved. Why? Because the trademark examiner refused his mark, saying it's too similar to another mark for clothing items that's already out there. I'm gonna share with you what his marks are and the obstacles to him getting them registered.
So I'm gonna shrink myself into the corner and switch screens. So Justin Bieber has applied for 17 trademarks. You can see them here, and they're all for, uh, clothing for Drew, right? So we have Drew Fit, Drew Renew, Drew, Drew House of Drew. They're all different. Let's look at the, um, image list here, and you can see what they all are. So you can see he's got a number of things that he wants to register, and the problem is there's already somebody else using using Drew for goods that are related.
Now, just briefly, because I want to keep this short, you can't register a trademark if the goods are similar or related. Okay, and related goods. So if you have clothing, things that are related to clothing are things like cosmetics, shoes, handbags, sunglasses. Those are all considered related to clothing because those things tend to be encountered by the consumer in the same either the same area of the store, in the same store, or on the same shelf, right? So when the consumer tends to encounter goods together, we say those goods are related. So if you walk into Chanel, if you walk into Tom Ford, you're going to see those things being sold in those boutiques, right? So those are related goods.
Now you also—there's a rule that says you can't incorporate the entirety of someone else's mark into your own. So if you want to register Drew Fit and somebody else already has Drew registered, that's going to be a problem for you if the goods are related. So let's look at what's going on here. So I'm going to show you the existing registration is Drew. You can see that it's a stylized design, but it features the word Drew prominently, and that matters, right? These are for orthotic inserts for footwear—so related to clothing? Yes, absolutely. And then we have another claim for shoes, insoles, and socks. All right. And then we have the word mark itself also for orthotic inserts for footwear and shoe insoles and socks. All right. And this has been in use since 1875. So suffice to say that this trademark registrant has priority; they've been using it for a very, very long time.
So what's really the issue here? The issue is that the Justin Bieber Drew marks are incorporating the entirety of the orthotic insert Drew marks and therefore related goods—shoes, insoles, and socks. So if you walk into a Tom Ford store or Chanel store, you're going to see things like shoes and socks and clothing all sold together. It's very common in the marketplace. Take Nike, for example; Nike sells things like clothing and sportswear and shoes and socks. So does, um, Champion Athletic; they sell shoes and sportswear and socks all together.
So I think the likelihood of this mark being issued for Justin Bieber is very, very slim, and I don't see any way around this. This is the problem when you're using an inexperienced attorney; they sometimes will file things, and, but you know, the client will come to me to fix it, and I'll say, "I wouldn't have filed this." This is an example of an application that I wouldn't have filed. I would have counseled the client to choose another mark, one that is actually registerable for their goods and services because Drew is already taken for similar goods, and the likelihood of them getting this registration through is very, very small.
And I like to see my clients—when I like them to get their trademarks registered. I'm Angela Langlotz. Find me online at trademarkdoctor.net. You can also find me on YouTube at trademark—I'm sorry—video.trademarkdoctor.net/youtube. I'm also on TikTok; find me just by searching TrademarkDoctor. And I'm on Facebook at facebook.com/trademarkdoctor.