Wednesday night, Wankus had Serenity Swallows call-in on his KSEX show explaining that she received a communique from Steve Lane stating that the Serenity name was trademarked and that Swallows should think of using another name. https://www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=15125. With all due respect to Mr. Lane and his argument presented here, wouldn’t a movie goer wanting to find out more about the motion picture Serenity, have the same “confusion” with the porn actress as Mr. Lane cites? Wouldn’t Serenity possibly profit as well in a mix-up of those two names? Just a thought.
Steve Lane writes: “Wow, surprised that Mark and Ms. Swallows went so public with this. Respectfully, Both Don and Wankus are very wrong on this. While true “Serenity” is trademarked by Johnson and Johnson. It is in a different trademark class. “Serenity” is trademarked by many people. But we have it trademarked in 3 different “adult classes”. We have had for over 10 years, one of the top trademark firms as our representation. http://www.gtlaw.com/home.htm (formally Quirk and Tratos) Spending 1000s of dollars to protect her name. We have spent 10’s of thousands promoting Serenity not to mention Wicked’s 100’s of thousands at her time there during her career.
As for Wankus’s assumption, it’s not whether a person looks like Serenity but the simple fact it would sight confusion. Chances are great when one is looking for this Serenity, they type in the key word, as an example, and Ms. Swallows comes up. That person clicks her website, joins or buys a video and they profit from the federally trademarked name Serenity. This is just one example.
Serenity has worked for over 15 years building her name and reputation. It as a very unique name. Serenity has also restricted all her model releases from day one to the specific job or video title that she was working on. As we become aware of anyone using that name, we respectfully ask that they cease using the name. Just about all have done so at first request. The remainder have done so by our lawyers request.
On our phone calls, I offered advice for Ms. Swallows to find a name and build her own identity as she is still very new. That and a few other amicable gestures. I guess Mr. Hamilton (her business partner) chose to take the any publicity is good publicity route.
I’m also a bit surprised that Wankus, who I’ve communicated for many years didn’t give me a call as well. I’m always available. Including offering advice on how to trademark Tyler’s name.