Story worthy of 'Enquirer' unfolds in legal scrap over last Elvis photo

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/south/epaper/2008/05/20/m1a_elvis_0521.html


By JANE MUSGRAVE

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

WEST PALM BEACH — The intrigue surrounding the last photo taken of Elvis, the one of The King laid out in his casket, continues.

The famous photo sent millions of grieving Elvis Presley fans streaming to supermarkets when it appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer weeks after the rock 'n' roll god's death. But it was not in the tabloid's Boca Raton headquarters when the building was decontaminated and reopened six years after a 2001 anthrax attack, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

David Rustine, the Boca Raton developer who inherited millions of celebrity photos when he bought the tabloid's contaminated headquarters for $40,000 in 2003 says he suspects the 1977 photo was snatched by a man who teamed with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to clean the building.

Saying the photo is worth at least $1 million, Rustine filed the lawsuit, seeking to force John Y. Mason to give it back or pay him for it.

"Mason is wrongfully detaining the Elvis Photo," Rustine says in the lawsuit filed last week.

Mason is president and CEO of the Slingerlands, N.Y.-based Sabre Technical Services. In 2004, Sabre and Giuliani Partners formed Bio-One.

that Gibsom who currently own the Slingerland name let them get away with the Slingerlands anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingerland_Drum_Company

And even if it were the name of the company, trademark law allows two companies to have the same name as long as they're not selling similar products. You can have an Ace realtor and an Ace hardware store in the same city.

The most interesting part of this story is that Guiliani is able to make a lot of money off of the (unsolved) anthrax attacks.

I could sell banjo strings using the name Microsoft ?

Vista banjo strings is a no-starter for me also.

a whole lot different by description from what Elixirs are in reality. Apart from that real oldies are best strung with nylons tuned down a tone or two to help protect the necks - so Microsoft could be a good name for those.

OTOH, you could sell "lifelike--just like your husband's!" vibrators to freepers' wives under that name.

:rofl:

in which banjo strings fall, and if you're not trying to pass your strings off as being a Microsoft Software product, you might be able to do it.

Your argument that you're not trying to pass yourself off as Microsoft Software might be hard to make since Microsoft is such a huge brand, and you might not have a good argument for why you picked it. But if, say, microsoft were a clever way to describe the product (the strings are extra small and soft) without being merely descriptive, you might be able to trademark it against MS's objections.