[eschaider]

I have always found it interesting how lawyers, more so than most other professionals (other than politicians, who are primarily lawyers), are so uniformly held in disregard.

Just the other day, I was forced into having a disturbing conversation with a Trademark Attorney who was explaining to me that a Trademark for a name using the word Cambridge could only be issued to a firm located in or near Cambridge, Massachusetts. When I asked why that was so, he indicated it was a geographical restriction requiring the trademark holder to be headquartered in the same geographical locale as the name Cambridge so as not to cause confusion???

I asked him if he were certain of this, and he responded by reminding me of his credentials and why I called him. He also gratuitously pointed out to me that he taught Trademark Law at a prestigious California University, suggesting I might find value in enrolling in one of his courses.

I turned down his educational invitation. Instead, I asked a few more questions beginning with how could the P&TO office issue a trademark to an Arizona-based firm for a mark beginning with the word Cambridge without any presence in Cambridge, Mass. As you might have guessed, the question was followed by initial disbelief until I pointed him at the P&TO website. The very suggestion of discrediting him with the P&TO website data unleashed yet another flurry of vocabulary that was, well, unintelligible.

Not to be deterred and more along the lines of a poke in the eye, I suggested to him that Cambridge, Massachusetts is not the original Cambridge. As luck would have it, the original is located in England. Using his logic, that would preclude the possibility of any trademark being issued by the P&TO to any entity that was not located in Cambridge, England!

I asserted that the P&TO had not only issued a mark to multiple entities with the word Cambridge prominent in their Trademark but those entities were located exclusively in the US! This produced a significant volume of throat clearing and coughing followed by a blizzard of vernacular, again unintelligible to mere mortals. By the way, this culminated with another invitation to sign up for one of his classes!!

I don't have a 100% certainty, but I do have a pretty high confidence level, approaching 100%, that the experience I just related has a great deal to do with why many lawyers (I am not including you, Patrick) and politicians are, for the most part, held in such low esteem.