Intellectual Property Law

Losing Seattle Post-Intelligencer Will Hurt Public and Trademark Community Alike

By Michael Atkins

The Seattle P-I: It’ll be a sad day when the printing presses stop.

This week may mark the end of the the 146 year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of two daily newspapers here. The loss of jobs — and, more importantly, the loss of viewpoints — will impoverish our city. That includes the public, business, and legal communities that have an interest in trademark issues.

We’ve been lucky to have the P-I reporting trademark news all these years. Here’s just a sampling of articles from 2009 we’re likely to miss when the paper closes its doors:

• “Trademark lawsuit against Eddie Bauer dropped” (March 11);

• “Inside Entrepreneurship: Learn trademark basics to avoid unnecessary costs” (March 5);

• “Tour-bound Phish asks judge to reel in bootleggers” (March 4);

• “Laughing Buddha Brewing will take a new name” (Feb. 23);

• “Microsoft promotes its top intellectual property lawyer” (Feb. 19); and

• “Experience Hendrix wins judgment in vodka lawsuit” (Feb. 17).

Granted, some of these stories are from the Associated Press; some were reported by The Seattle Times; and some came from the P-I’s Big Blog, which hopefully will continue even after the P-I stops printing content on paper. STL covered some of these issues, too. But the loss of the P-I adding to the mix will really hurt.

It’s a sad time for Seattleites. While we get our news — including trademark law news — from lots of sources, we’ll be poorer when those sources doesn’t include the P-I.

Photo credit: The Seattle Times

Full post as published by Seattle Trademark Lawyer on March 15, 2009 (boomark / email).