Business Law in the Big Bend

“I have the name Matsuflex. If I can harness that Matsuflex energy, it’s gonna help change America in a positive way!”

Matsuflex

These are the words of Ryan Matsunaga, a.k.a. Matsuflex, one of the participant’s on VH1′s reality t.v. show The Tool Academy. Matsuflex, is one of the program’s finalists and has made a point of advertising his name as often as possible. During a recent show, one of the show’s attendee’s asked “What’s Matsuflex? It sounds like an energy drink.” Here’s another suggestion, a Matsuflex sounds like a pull-up machine hawked on late night t.v. The point is, the name Matsuflex may have real commercial value.

If that is the case, Matsuflex would do well to trademark the name as soon as possible. I ran a quick search at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database and was unable to find a trademark registered as Matsuflex, which means it is still open for someone to claim, so long as they can prove they will offer something for sale called Matsuflex in a particular class of goods or services.

Matsuflex should think about running to the USPTO to claim the name, if he hasn’t done so already. Otherwise, an unscrupulous entrepreneur might take it over, and misappropriate all that positive Matsuflex energy.

This entry was posted on March 2, 2009 at 4:35 am and is filed under Entrepreneurship, Intellectual property controversies, Public domain, Trademarks. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: artists, authors, brands, controversial trademarks, Intellectual property controversies, license, Trademarks