According to Page Six, a woman in New York has sued Disney and ABC for using the phrase "What's your
problem?" in their ads for Boston Legal. The woman, Janet Arnold, has a public access cable show called
What's Your Problem and has supposedly trademarked the name (though when she registered the name is not
mentioned). Meanwhile, my plan to become wealthy by trademarking the word "the" seems to have been an utter
failure. At any rate, it's clear that the only way Disney and ABC are going to avoid any legal entanglements is to
change the catchphrase to "What's your problem? (the previous phrase is a registered trademark of Janet
Arnold)." Yeah, that'll be sweeping the nation any day now.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-14-2006 @ 11:40AM
Lampbane said...
BBC already has a show with that name:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/wyp/
Reply
3-14-2006 @ 11:56AM
Duane said...
Actually she'd like them to change it to "What's your problem? (the previous phrase is a registered trademark of Janet Arnold - please visit her website at blahblahblah.com and support her advertisers)."
Remember, there's no point in saying anything these days unless it includes a plug for your website. All googlejuice is good googlejuice. :)
Reply
3-14-2006 @ 12:18PM
elf said...
And why do I expect that an upcoming episode of BL will feature a female client trying to hire the firm to sue a TV show over the use of a common, everyday phrase that she claimed she'd trademarked. The firm will take on the case though warning the woman she has something less than a snowball's chance in hell of winning. (The real question is just how crazy/stupid/ugly the writer want to portray the woman.)
If they really want to have fun with the script, the disputed phrase will be "No problem!" This of course could lead to the defendant putting ALF on the witness stand to make their case.
Reply
3-14-2006 @ 8:35PM
Dave said...
Reminds me of Donald Trump trying to trademark "You're fired" a few years ago.
All that legal effort was money well spent, as NBC ended up selling literally tens of shirts with the slogan on them.
Reply
3-15-2006 @ 8:08PM
Jonna said...
I love BL, but after the 14 March episode, which was purely political, I refuse to watch anymore. I like to be entertained not watch political agenda
Reply