— Karen Brennan, Attorney
Unbelievably, the MTV show Jersey Shore has presented even more material to blog about (see Sharon Armstrong’s previous blog Trademark Lessons from Jersey Shore here).
Jersey Shore cast member Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is attempting to federally register her nickname “Snooki” as a trademark for books. Unfortunately, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has initially refused registration based upon a prior registration for “Adventures of Snooky” in connection with a series of children’s books. The Smoking Gun reports the Snooky books feature a cat who gets knocked overboard on a family fishing trip. Interestingly, the authors of the Adventures of Snooky books reside in New Jersey (check out the link here – isn’t that the Jersey Shore behind them?).
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that Snooki from Jersey Shore is not going to write children’s books. Thus, perhaps she could simply amend her description of goods to read “books, specifically excluding and most definitely not for children.”