Trademark Conflict May Leave Small Alaskan Museum Behind

A trademark dispute has broken out between two museums that want to be called the Hammer Museum, reports, The Wall Street Journal.

In the town of Haines, Alaska, where the population stands at 1,811, Dave Pahl displays his diverse array of antique and modern hammers in the “Hammer Museum,” which he created in 2000.

The livelihood of his museum may now be threatened, however, by the Armand Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles, which recently filed to shorten its own title and trademark the identical name, reports the newspaper.

The Los Angeles museum brought in more than $10.2-million in revenue last year and currently has over two dozen lawyers to help manage such conflicts.

Mr. Pahl, who works as a volunteer, helped his museum bring in $8,104 in revenue last year but could not afford a lawyer so filed his own trademark application online.

Mr. Pahl lost the rights to the domain name www.hammermuseum.com to the larger Los Angeles museum last year but refused to rescind the rights to www.hammermuseum.org when the museum’s lawyers offered to buy it from him.

While both applications are pending, Lynne G. Beresford, a commissioner for trademarks, says that who wins the rights to “Hammer Museum” will depend on which museum first used name “in commerce.”

Miranda Carroll, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles museum, says the organization will not prevent the Alaska museum from calling itself the Hammer Museum even if it wins the trademark. But, she adds, “I believe we would defend our case [from any challenge] if we were granted the trademark.”