Lee vs. Viacom Raises Trademark Questions

Monday's LA Times has an interesting article about Spike Lee's New York lawsuit which attempts to prevent Viacom's TV station TNN from renaming itself as "Spike TV." So far, Spike has won a temporary injunction preventing TNN from using the name. But Monday, he'll have to cough up an additional $2 million bond to maintain the injunction. Many think Lee's suit lacks merit and reflects his outsized ego. One wag wrote a letter to the editor of Variety pointing out that Lee "didn't complain before, when they named a TV show after him: 'Jackass.'"

I blogged briefly about the case earlier here.