Actually you are wrong --Lehman's is is still a going concern and Barclay's is still fighting for the trademark name -rumor has it W.Buffet would like to house some money in it
Barclays Fighting To Hold On To 'Lehman Brothers' Trademark
By Bill Donahue
Law360, New York (December 09, 2014, 3:59 PM ET) -- Barclays PLC has largely discarded the “Lehman Brothers” brand since it acquired much of the bankrupt investment firm during the 2008 financial crisis, but court records show that it's now fighting at the trademark office to prove that it still controls the rights to the infamous name.
It's hard to find Barclays making much mention these days of Lehman — the storied American investment bank whose dramatic collapse under the weight of toxic mortgage-backed securities drove the global financial crisis into overdrive. The huge British bank bought Lehman's U.S. brokerage business at fire sale prices during the height of the crisis.
But in a previously unreported dispute over the past year, Barclays has quietly been taking actions at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board aimed at stopping a small British company from registering “Lehman Brothers” as a trademark for a planned line of whiskeys parodying Lehman and its epic demise.
The story starts with London-based Tiger Lily Ventures Ltd. applying for the name back in March 2013. A few months later, Barclays filed its own application for “securities brokerage services.” Both marks have now been published for opposition — and each company has opposed the others' attempt at “Lehman Brothers.”
The dispute effectively boils down to one big question: Did Barclays distance itself from a name synonymous with financial catastrophe to the extent that it cost the bank the ability to assert trademark rights to it?
In a Dec. 1 notice of opposition to the bank's application, Tiger Lily says that's precisely what happened.
“The available evidence shows that over the past six years, [Barclays] has steered clear of using the 'Lehman Brothers' to sell securities,” the company wrote. “Ostensibly, the verified statement … of [Barclay's] bona fide intent to use the mark in commerce for the applied-for services was submitted fraudulently.”
And, while Barclays acquired numerous federal registrations for Lehman in the 2008 buyout, Tiger Lily says the bank has since allowed all of them to lapse through failure to file necessary paperwork with the trademark office.
Unsurprisingly, Barclays sees it differently. In its own notice of opposition against Tiger Lily's trademark application filed Nov. 24, it says the trademark rights in the Lehman name are “just as strong today as it was at the time of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.”
“Although Lehman Brothers sold its core investment banking businesses and other assets to Barclays and filed for bankruptcy protection in or about 2008, Lehman Brothers still is a going concern, engaged in numerous financial transactions and business dealings,” the bank said.
Worse, says Barclays, Tiger Lily intended its identical mark to create an association with the defunct I-bank. Records show that Tiger Lily did in fact admit to a trademark examiner that using the name on whiskey was “designed to evoke the feelings with and parody of the bankruptcy with which Lehman Brothers has become synonymous.”
AI
