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Tycoon brand plan rattles Natives

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Martha Stewart, the homemaking entrepreneur and presenter of her own US Apprentice series, has stirred yet more controversy with her attempt to trademark the name of her New York State neighbourhood, Katonah. As IP Review Online reported back in January, the move had drawn intense criticism from Katonah’s Historical Museum, Village Improvement Society and store owners, all of whom feared that their trade titles could be affected if Stewart’s plan to use the mark on a range of furniture was approved.

On 29 May, reports emerged indicating that the argument has taken a more specialist turn, with the State’s Native American groups wading into the fray. Representatives from Cayuga Nation, the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation and a host of other like-minded parties have rounded on Stewart’s legal machine, claiming that her brand would infringe the very essence of their tradition. Their bone of contention is that the area’s name was once that of the 17th century local hero, Chief Katonah, who sold plots of the region’s land to white settlers in 1680.

Speaking for the New Jersey State Commission on Indian Affairs, co-chair Autumn Scott said: ‘We trust that Martha Stewart intended no malice in seeking to have her corporation trademark the name of one of our great ancestral leaders, but for her to say she is doing so to honour him and our tribe is absurd especially when it is being done solely for profit. Why doesn't she honour someone like Ronald Reagan and have Ronald Reagan rockers? Pick another language, another name, another person.’

Suzan Harjo, president of national campaigning group, the Morning Star Institute, pointed out: ‘If I wanted to trademark “Martha Stewart” and put out a line of tea towels, she would have me in court very quickly. She'd be saying, “You can't use my name, that's valuable, that belongs to me.”’

Although Stewart’s spokeswoman has maintained that the tycoon has always intended to ‘honour the town and the hamlet’, she declined this week to comment on the new attacks.