Re: TV ad

[Mike Thomas <nostatic@earthlink.net>]

Any station that was using the Kiss moniker prior to Clear Channel trademarking
it can continue to use it.  This is happening in several markets such as New
York, Miami, San Antonio, Gainesville, Buffalo and a bunch of others where these
non CC-owned stations  already existed.  In the case of the Maine station they
dropped the moniker, but just recently started using it again.  However, during
the time they were not using the Kiss slogan CC trademarked the name, so my
guess is that they are violating the trademark, unless the station struck a deal
with Clear Channel to use it.

This is similar to Jacobs Media owning the "Edge" name and Infinity trademarking
the "Arrow" moniker.  Up until late last year, 102.1 and 105.3 on the New
Hampshire seacoast used the "Arrow" name, but they paid Infinity for the
priviledge.  I guess they didn't want to buy the name any longer, so the classic
rock duo is now known as the "Shark."

Mike Thomas

Matthew Osborne wrote:

> This is true, but wouldn't anyone already using the Kiss moniker before it
> was trademarked be grandfathered in?  WRKS in New York has been using that
> moniker for years now.  In fact, a more local example of this for Western
> New Yorkers would be WKSE-FM in Buffalo.  It goes by Kiss 98.5 (and has been
> for over 10 years now), but is owned by Entercom.
>
>                             Matt Osborne
>                             Rochester, NY