Trademark Attorney weighs in on "Brent Corrigan" Trademark Issues

BRENT CORRIGAN. The name for which at least one and possibly as many as 4 men have died...with the fate of 2 more up in the air. According to our consulting trademark attorney, the trademarkability of "Brent Corrigan" and its resultant commercial value is null and void, and the current market value of the name is...well, you know.

For some general information regarding the limited value of state registrations, see this article: http://www.whitelawfirm.com/stateregistrations.html

For a review of the complete file of the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the Cobra application for "Brent Corrigan" click here: http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/tow?SRCH=Y&isSubmitted=true&details=&SELECT=US+Serial+No&TEXT=78697319

NOTE: Quite a few interesting things in the above. Read it carefully.

For current status information regarding the federal "Brent Corrigan" application at any time, click here: http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78697319


Bryan had/has a federal application pending for registration of the mark which has NOT been granted. It was prepared and filed on his own, without an attorney's advice, and he did not complete the application properly. Moreover, the name, Brent Corrigan is not eligible for protection as a federal trademark, because names of performers are not trademarkable -- to get a trademark, a designation must be used as a mark on products, and to protect names that appear on videos, there have to be a series of videos using that name to identify the series, not just a performer in the videos. The USPTO denied the application initially, because Kocis did not meet the series requirement, and his application was prepared improperly.

Since then, Cobra started printing "A Brent Corrigan Series" on their videos with Brent in them, and amended the trademark application to indicate that there was a series, in compliance with the statute. If this amendment is successful, the mark may be published for opposition and at that point, interested parties may oppose the application for registration.

In sum, Kocis/Cobra has no federal trademark in the Brent Corrigan name, and I sincerely doubt they ever will -- if an opposition is filed, it would win.

Second, on the Pennsylvania state trademark registration -- state registrations are not worth the paper they are written on, and do not confer any substantive trademark rights. That is because federal trademark rights supercede state rights, and state Secretaries of State do not perform federal and common law searches before granting a state registration. Anyone who files and pays 50 bucks can get a state registration and they are therefore meaningless.

The Pennsylvania trademark registration is not even enforceable in Pennsylvania, and is definitely not enforceable anywhere outside the state.