Market Data & Trends Articles & Case Studies Permanent Magnet Division (PMD) MCMA Motor & Motion College LOGIN FOR FULL SITE EXPERIENCE Missouri, United StatesTel: (314) 553-5351 Click Here to Contact Bench and stationary power tools, vacuum cleaners, humidifiers and fans. Control Techniques Introduces New High Power Modular DrivesThe Board's recognition of a "family of marks" is about as rare as a fish in a tree, but in Black & Decker Corp. v. Emerson Electric Co., 84 USPQ2d 1482 (TTAB 2007) [precedential], it ruled that Opposer B&D had established a family of "HOG" marks for power-operated outdoor equipment. The Board proceeded to find likely confusion with the applied-for marks DIRT HAWG and WATER HOG for "vacuum cleaners, wet and dry vacuum cleaners, and replacement parts therefor."The Board first gave B&D a smackdown by denying its motion for leave to amend the notices of opposition to add a claim that Applicant Emerson did not have a bona fide intention to use the applied-for marks at the time of filing.

The motion was filed after the close of the testimony period, and the Board found that B&D had unduly delayed in filing its motion.Turning to the du Pont analysis, the Board rooted its way through the record evidence, beginning with B&D's family-of-marks claim. It noted that B&D advertises "Hog Powered Products" and utilizes store banners with slogans such as GOING HOG WILD, HOG POWER, and HOG POWERED PRODUCTS. The different HOG products -- GRASS HOG, LAWN HOG, HEDGE HOG, EDGE HOG, LEAF HOG -- are placed together in stores, and some of Opposer's advertisements in fact "tell consumers that opposer has a HOG family of marks.""[O]pposer has created a family of marks consisting of the word HOG, preceded by a word that indicates or suggests the use of the product for which it is used, such that consumers will view the marks following this pattern as having a common origin."The Board observed that DIRT HAWG and WATER HAWG have "the same pattern as is used by opposer's family of marks. Moreover, the words may be pronounced the same way, and have the same connotation and commercial impression.

The spelling difference is not sufficient to distinguish the marks.Applicant Emerson contended that the goods are specifically different, since B&D does not sell wet/dry vacuums. The Board noted, however, that B&D does sell those products, although not under a HOG mark, and that wet/dry vacuum cleaners "may generally be categorized as lawn and garden products": for example, they "can be used to clean sidewalks, decks and patios." The parties' goods "may be stored in a garage" and may be used "by the same do-it-yourself consumers for maintenance and clean-up." hoover vacuum cleaner commercialWhen seeing Emerson's products, consumers are likely to believe "that opposer has expanded its line of HOG products."vacuum cleaners patentAs to trade channels, the products may be sold not only in large home centers, but also in smaller hardware stores, including mom-and-pop stores. sanyo vacuum cleaner canister

And even if they are in separate departments in larger stores, "a consumer may encounter both types of products during a visit to a particular store, regardless of their location with the stores." [ The Board went a little too far with the "large store" store point. Lots of diverse products may be encountered by a consumer in a home center, including products wholly unrelated to wet/dry vacs and leaf blowers: e.g., paint and cleaning supplies.] Thus the channels-of-trade factor favored B&D.As to purchaser sophistication, the Board found that the purchase of these products "is not likely to engender a great deal of deliberation." The products are relatively inexpensive [ relative to what? and for whom?]: for example, Applicant's two gallon vacuum sells for about $20, while Opposer's are in the $50 to $250 range.B&D claimed that its HOG marks are famous, but the Board did not agree. [B&D's sales and advertising figures were submitted as confidential]. At most, they are "strong."Emerson pointed to various third-party registrations -- BUSH HOG, FLOOR HOG, RAZOR-BACK HOG, HOG WASH, SAND HOG, MUD HOG, GROUND HOG, SKID HAWG -- but the Board found them of no particular significance.

They either had a "different pattern" than B&D's HOG marks, or covered vastly different goods, or were too minimal in number to show that HOG is a suggestive term for the goods at issue.Emerson also pointed to third-party use of HOG marks, but its feeble evidence "does not outweigh the significant amount of sales of opposer's products and the expenditures by opposer in advertising and promoting its HOG family of marks."The lack of actual confusion was a neutral factor, the Board noting that Emerson's WATER HOG mark has not been put into use, and that DIRT HAWK sales have been very limited.Finally, the Board noted that Emerson was aware of B&D's prior use of the HOG marks, but it refused to find that Emerson had adopted the HAWG marks in bad faith. The Board found credible Emerson's assertion that it chose the word HAWG because of the association of that word with the University of Arkansas.Considering all the relevant du Pont factors, the Board found confusion likely and sustained the oppositions.

Text Copyright John L. Welch 2007. View More from Emerson Network Power >> 10 can ship immediately. Minimum Quantity: 1 | Typically Reduces Normal Mode Transients to ±2 VoltsSurge Current Capacity: 45,000 AmpsTransient Protection in All Modes: Line-to-Neutral, Line-to-Ground and Neutral-to-GroundLED Power IndicatorTen-Year WarrantyUL 1283, CSA Recognized © Allied Electronics, Inc.Keith Emerson, who has died aged 71, was the co-founder and flamboyant keyboardist of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the British rock band that ushered in the florid, classically-flavoured progressive rock of the early 1970s. Emerson, Lake & Palmer was formed in 1970 after Emerson and the guitarist and vocalist Greg Lake jammed at the Fillmore West rock music venue in San Francisco, in 1969, while both were touring with their respective bands, the Nice (Emerson) and King Crimson (Lake). After an abortive attempt to recruit Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix experience) as drummer, the duo settled on Carl Palmer, who had worked with the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster.

The group’s agenda was clear from its first concert at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival when they made their debut with their rock interpretation of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Their debut album, Emerson Lake & Palmer, included souped-up versions of Bartók’s 1911 piano suite Allegro barbaro and the first movement of Janáček’s Sinfonietta. Released in November 1970, it reached No 4 in the UK and No 18 in the US album charts and went gold mainly thanks to Lucky Man, an acoustic ballad Lake had written at the age of 12 and which was subsequently released as a single.   Photo: Pictorial Press / Alamy In the next seven years the band went on to release six platinum albums, including Tarkus (1971); Pictures at an Exhibition (1971, a recording of a live performance at Newcastle City Hall); Trilogy (1972) and Brain Salad Surgery (1973). ELP, as they became known, were the first band to make the synthesizer integral to their performances, and it was Emerson, widely regarded as the best virtuoso keyboardist on the rock scene, who drove their characteristic sound.

The experience of hearing him “pummelling Bach half to death”, one fan recalled, seemed like “revenge for those of us who had endured years of compulsory piano lessons”. The band also pioneered today’s stadium spectaculars with over-the-top shows, full of flying pianos, fireworks and giant armadillos firing polystyrene “snow”. In 1973-74 when they took 36 tonnes of equipment on a world tour, only the Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin were bigger concert draws. Things did not always go to plan. On one occasion the armadillo fired the polystyrene into Emerson’s grand piano, forcing a 20-minute hiatus while roadies dismantled the instrument and used a vacuum cleaner to remove the “snow”. Emerson’s on-stage theatrics – including stabbing his Hammond organ with two Hitler Youth daggers (to wedge down specific keys during solos), playing the organ upside down or backwards, and using a special rig to spin his grand piano over the stage – also took their toll. On one occasion, the piano suddenly stopped mid-spin, breaking his nose;

on another he sustained cuts and bruises when the instrument, which had been rigged up with fireworks, exploded prematurely during a concert in San Francisco.   Photo: Rex Features In his “musical biography” of ELP, Endless Enigma (2006), Edward Macan identified two rival ideological streams emerging in rock music of the early 1970s - the “utopian synthesism” of groups such as ELP, which sought to transcend musical genres and raise the intellectual calibre of rock, and “blues orthodoxy,” which saw blues as the root of all authenticity and was well represented among rock critics – particularly the British critical establishment – of the time. As a result, even as they filled stadiums, ELP were rubbished by the rock press, John Peel dismissing them as “a waste of talent and electricity” and Robert Christgau describing them as “as stupid as their most pretentious fans” and assigning a C minus to their album Trilogy. “If you looked up the word 'pretentious’ in the dictionary, you could well find 'Emerson, Lake and Palmer’,” as Carl Palmer later admitted.

It was often said to be the advent of punk that proved their undoing. But in fact by the time the Sex Pistols hit the London stage in 1976 ELP already seemed old hat and the band themselves were worn out. A 1977 world tour with an entourage of 115 people, including a $20,000-a-day full orchestra and choir, had to be drastically reduced when tickets did not sell. Shortly after the release of Love Beach (1978), the group’s only album not to make the top 40, ELP announced its break up.   Photo: Pictorial Press / Alamy Keith Emerson was born on November 2 1944 in Todmorden, Yorkshire, and grew up in Worthing, West Sussex. His father played the piano by ear, and as a child Keith tried to emulate him. One of the first records he bought was the jazz and classical musician Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. From the ages of eight to 12, he had piano lessons, but claimed to be largely “self-taught”, his teachers only having imparted “the basic rudiments of music – like where to find the middle C”.

By his mid-teens, however, he was playing with local bands, and by his late teens had moved to London, where he joined the band V.I.P.’s and later Gary Farr and the T-Bones. Then, in his 20s, he formed the trio (and briefly quartet) the Nice, in which he began developing his crossover blend of classical, jazz and rock – and his extravagant onstage persona. The band soon developed a strong live following and achieved commercial success with an instrumental rearrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s America. The Hammond organ was Emerson’s instrument of choice during this time, but that changed when he heard the influential 1968 album Switched-On Bach by Walter Carlos, who performed classical pieces on the then new synthesizer. The early-generation analog synthesizers, created by Robert Moog, had featured on the Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road, but it was Emerson, with ELP, who turned it into a central rock instrument. “I suppose it was rather like the early airplane pilots,” he recalled in an interview in 1996.

“We were really dealing with equipment that wasn’t designed to fly. The early modular synthesizers... were very prone to changing keys and picking up radio signals. They would even catch transmitter calls from passing taxis when we would be playing.”   Photo: MARKA / Alamy ELP were always a strange combination of high and low art, and sometimes even band members found it difficult to define their identity. Their original title for the album Brain Salad Surgery (which contained versions of William Blake’s Jerusalem and a cerebral Alberto Ginastera piano piece) was “Whip Some Skull on Yer” while, much to the annoyance of its designer, HR Giger, a penis had to be airbrushed from the album cover. Though critically derided, many fans considered the album to be their best. After disbanding in 1978, ELP made several, mostly half-hearted, comeback attempts which yielded two further albums. In the meantime, group members went their separate ways, Palmer joining the super-group Asia, Lake embarking on a solo career, and Emerson producing a solo album, and writing several film scores, including for Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980) and the Sylvester Stallone thriller Nighthawks (1981).

In the early 2000s he toured in the US, Britain, Europe and Japan with the Keith Emerson Band. His autobiography, published in 2003, was entitled, Pictures of an Exhibitionist. As a description of his stage persona that was fair enough, yet in person, Emerson was a courtly, disarmingly softly-spoken man. In 2005 Castle Records put out a two-disc compilation of his works, Hammer It Out. In July 2010 ELP reunited in London for a 40th-anniversary set – their first live gig in 12 years – at the High Voltage Festival. Emerson’s last concert took place in July last year at the Barbican, where he performed a tribute to Moog on a synthesizer alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra. Through the years, Emerson consistently won the Overall Best Keyboardist award in the annual Keyboard Magazine readers’ poll. He was also honoured by the Smithsonian Institution, along with Robert Moog, for his pioneering work in electronic music. Yet he seemed to regret the sythesizer revolution he had helped to bring about: “People were worried when we came out that synthesizers would eventually take over, and in fact it has actually happened,” he said in 1992. “