Your podcast honors Saint Anthony of Padua, a Portuguese priest and friar born 1195 and died 1231. He was canonized in 1232 and known for a particular devotion to healing the sick. Doesn't infringe on the City of San Antonio's arbitrary use of a Saint's name as their own as Saint Anthony is a known and regarded figure in human history. #Lawyered
Needles & Grooves
THEEDADROCK.BLOG
Mather
I'm pretty sure this forum has the most lawyers per capita of any online non lawyer related forum.
EvanBenner
Totally not a lawyer, but I do work in branding. In most cases an enforceable city trademark includes a distinct design of sorts, not just the name alone. Is there anything in your podcast branding/key graphic that leans heavily on the city's own visual identifiers like the four-sided floral icon?
swamp
@EvanBenner Nope. We don’t use any visual trademarks or logos or written slogans. I’m pretty sure we’re safe legally but they do have practical leverage with the fact that Apple can delete our show for any reason and a continued trademark compliant could lead to that result.
EvanBenner
Ah, I wonder if it's because of the full use of San Antonio Public Library. That's probably more enforceable.
Melt Face Molly Drop
Change it to San Antonio’s Pubic Library (merkin)
swamp
@EvanBenner I can see temporary confusion for a user searching in Apple’s interface and seeing both my podcast and the library’s real podcast as predictive search results but I can’t see the argument that a reasonable user would think ours is an official gov podcast after seeing our art, description, reviews, category, etc. Def not after listening to the show.
swamp
@EvanBenner Also curious whether a) the name of a public/gov facility is able to be trademarked (just the words) and b) whether that matters if the offending material is using it for satirical purposes/fair use. We’ve exchanged a few emails with their lawyer and are waiting to see if they accept our middle ground concession.