Star Jumps and Trademarks

Marketing is an incredibly powerful tool for a brand, and its protection can often be the difference between a successful promotion of your goods, distinguishing them in a favorable way from others. Trademarks offer such protection, with a variety of things being included as possible trademarks in Australia. The issue in a recent dispute over a trademark being sought by Jetstar (a subsidiary of Qantas Airways) was something potentially worth jumping to arms for.

Elephants don't see why you'd ever need to jump

In a recent promotional campaign Jetstar used people doing a star jump as an expression of the joys that travel can give you when using their services when flying to a destination, having started the campaign in 2004. Toyota have been running a campaign featuring a similar jump since the 1980s, and applied for trademarks for over 30 different variations of the star jump in 2012. A few of these applications were contested by Jetstar, who in turn filed several applications for a number of variations of the jump in the last few months. Clearly there was an issue over who has the trademark for the particular jump.

In a recent development Jetstar's representative indicated that they were only concerned with the straight-legged star jump, and would not be concerned with Toyota's bent-knee versions of the jump. With both parties having successfully registered a number of variations, they have equal claim to the trademark should things be litigated. Toyota's history of using it in advertising should work in their favor, however successfully retaining motion marks is a difficult matter. Whether the parties choose to litigate on the matter or opt to settle will remain to be seen, but the situation goes to show just how varied trademarks can be and how important something simple as a jump can be when it comes to a company's image.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald