Mall Marks II

Always looking for different angles to stories, my Mall Marks post got me to think about malls and trademarks. I wanted to see what other marks General Growth Properties have submitted to the PTO. The search ("general growth properties")[on] pulls up 36 records. However, companies such as GGP typically create separate entities to own and operate their malls. I noticed on the N Natick application that the attorney for GGP shares the same address for GGP. Therefore, he's probably in-house and files applications for all of GGP's marks. So I searched for all of the applications or registrations where Michael McVickar was the attorney of record. The search (Michael)[at] and (McVickar)[at] pulls up 114 records. A sampling of records show: that GGP-MINT HILL L.L.C. owns THE BRIDGES AT MINT HILL; GGP Ala Moana L.L.C. owns HO'OKIPA TERRACE; Landmark Mall L.L.C. owns LANDMARK VILLAGE; etc. All these companies share the same address with GGP.

So, there's a competitive intelligence lesson in the above exercise. Faced with finding marks of Company A which tends to apply to register marks using various companies, try finding a common element between them, such as common address or attorney. If you find a common element, you'll probably be able to find more marks then just searching for Company A.

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