Public Domain Monkey Selfie Now In A Trademark Application, Using Photoshopped Gap Images [Updated!] (original) (raw)

from the spot-the-infringement? dept

Update: And this story gets even crazier. Please see this update in which the real Saban Capital Group claims this is being done by an impostor Saban Capital Group.

Okay. If you want a law school exam question, let’s start with this one:

A London photographer visiting Indonesia, leaves his camera on the ground, leading a macaque monkey to pick it up and take a selfie:

Despite protestations from the photographer (the monkey has remained silent), most experts agree that the photograph is in the public domain. Years later, Saban Capital Group, formed by former rock star/entertainment industry mogul Haim Saban (or not, as this update notes) has attempted to register a US trademark on this semi-familiar looking image:

The plan (according to the application) is to put this on all sorts of clothing, including (no joke), wedding dresses.

In order to show how Saban is using the mark in commerce, it has offered up this image:

Of course, it turns out that that’s really just taking the public domain monkey selfie and photoshopping it onto a Gap catalog photo (Saban does not own the Gap).

So, to recap: we have a (most likely) public domain monkey selfie image, which someone else is seeking a trademark on, using another company’s photoshopped photos. In this scenario, please describe how much the lawyers are going to bill to sort this all out?

Special tips of the hat to Eriq Gardner for spotting the trademark application and the folks at Five Useful Articles for noticing the photoshopping of Gap clothing (and for inspiring me to try to turn this into a law school exam question).

Filed Under: clothing, copying, copyright, haim saban, monkey, public domain, selfie, selfie monkey, trademark
Companies: saban capital group