Paper fights Maine firm Journal claims trademark threat

PORTLAND – Dick Dyer says there’s no way people would confuse his Wedding Street Journal with The Wall Street Journal.

But that’s not stopping the newspaper from claiming that Dyer’s business logo infringes on its trademark, and demanding that he give up his trademark registration.

Dyer said Thursday he is shocked that the publishing giant considers his tiny company a threat. The Wall Street Journal, after all, has a daily circulation of 1.8 million and wields enormous influence; the Wedding Street Journal, based in Winthrop, produces wedding videos and has sold just a few hundred of them for $19.95 each.

“I see no element of confusion,” Dyer said. “I don’t know what their problem is.”

But Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, considers the paper’s name among its most valuable assets. In papers filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, lawyers wrote that Dyer adopted the Wedding Street Journal mark with the “deliberate intention of benefiting from the [paper’s] valuable reputation.”

Vickee Adams, spokeswoman for Dow Jones, said the company has to protect itself against anything that might dilute its name.

“They’re clearly benefiting from the situation,” she said. “We have every responsibility to protect our trademark.”

Dyer owns a public relations company and started Wedding Street Journal as a sideline a few years ago. His company produces videotapes about weddings and sells them through the Wedding Street Journal Web site and at trade shows.

The Wall Street Journal objected to Dyer’s trademark application when he first filed in 1998. Nonetheless, Dyer received the trademark certification for Wedding Street Journal in May 2000.

Dow Jones filed its “notice of opposition” three weeks later, but Dyer wasn’t notified of the opposition until earlier this week. He doesn’t know why there was such a delay, but he knows that he intends to fight.

Lawyers for both sides will file documents with the Patent and Trademark Office in the months ahead, and it is likely to take more than year before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decides the case. Dyer and Dow Jones also could reach an agreement on their own.

A few years ago, Dow Jones sent a letter demanding that the Small Street Journal – a small monthly family newspaper published in a home in Newburgh – refrain from registering its name with the federal trademark office.

The Small Street Journal publishers still produce the newspaper but say they are not actively pursuing registering their name any more on the federal level.