[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it heart, now get it in gear. It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Welcome to Passage to Profit, the road to entrepreneurship, where we talk with entrepreneurs and celebrities who tell their stories about their business journey and also share helpful insights about the successes that they've had.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Did you know that 2 in 5Americans want to start a new business or are business owners? Well, we have lots of information to help them too.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: And we also talk a little about the intellectual property that helps them flourish. Time now for intellectual property news. As you know, Gearhart Law is an intellectual property firm. We specialize in patents, trademarks, and copyrights. So of course, we have to talk a little bit about intellectual property. Today's topic, airport confusion. And it's not really being confused when you're in the airport. It's confusion between two airports. And regular listeners of the show understand that we have trademarks to prevent customer confusion. So we don't want people thinking that they're buying something made from one company when it was really made from another company. So recently there was a case in court in California where the Oakland airport decided to use the name San Francisco in their name. They wanted to call themselves the San Francisco Bay Oakland Airport. And of course, the there right across the San Francisco Bay from the San Francisco airport. And of course, the people in San Francisco, the airport people there didn't want the Oakland Airport to use the words San Francisco in their name because they thought people would get confused.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: I'm sure as heck would get confused on that.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: It's already so difficult to book an airport ticket. Holy cow. Can you imagine it flying into the wrong place?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Oakland's trying to get more business.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. You know, Oakland sort of has the reputation of being like this poor stepchild of San Francisco. So maybe they were trying to attach themselves to some glamour.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: But I wouldn't know the difference if we were flying into San Francisco Airport or San Francisco Oakland Airport. I wouldn't know which one to fly into or what the difference between the two was.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: So you would be confused. You would be a confused customer. Yeah, well, the court seemed to appreciate your position. So they actually did stop the Oakland airport from using the terms San Francisco in their name, but they do this in the New York area, too. We fly in and out of Newark Airport all the time. And when you go to make reservations, they'll call it New York. Right. And even though you're flying into Newark. So, anyway, I just like to bring this up with our panel. Let's go to Christy first. Christie, what do you think?
[00:03:07] Speaker B: I actually agree, although whenever I book flights, I just put, like, San Francisco area airports, or my son is in D.C. so it's Washington, D.C. airports to see that. But I think it would be confusing. I wouldn't know. I'd have to, like, get on maps and figure out where I'm going and whether I should go to that or that one. So I think it's good that they didn't do that. I mean, I have absolutely zero knowledge about intellectual property. But confusion, we all go about that, don't we?
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Right. Well, the world's complicated enough, but yeah, you're right. I mean, if you. If you're booking a flight into D.C. and you put in D.C. you'll get at least a couple of airports. Right. So you'd have your choice. Brandy, what do you think?
[00:03:43] Speaker C: I do know a little bit about ip, and I think that it's very important and protecting the confusion, or that I like to call them coat riders. Benefit Bay is having a lot of success, and so there was an agency that was founded in San Francisco, and they named themselves Benefits Bay. Just put an S in there.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: But we happen to have a registered trademark, and it was creating confusion, like Christie says. So we would need to support one of our customers. They would Google Benefit Bay. Benefits Bay would pop up, they'd call the wrong phone number. That's just a bad experience for everyone involved, whether they care about IP or not. People shouldn't be able to create that confusion or maybe try to win from someone else's hard work. So I agree with the court's action.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: So, Julian, what do you think about this? I totally agree with what Christy and Brandy said. Well, I guess the moral of the story is, get your trademarks, avoid customer confusion, and don't pull any fast ones. And if you want to learn more about trademarks, you can go to our website, learnmoreabouttrademarks.com and you can download a free white paper talking about trademarks, or you can book a consultation with an attorney at Gearhart Law that's. Learn more about Trademarks.com. passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 38 markets across the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer Noah Fleischman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey, and our studio assistant Rishiket Busari. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark, and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week. SA.
