The late Frank Zappa is almost better known for the names of his children, Dweezil and Moon-Unit, than anything else.  He was however composer, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director in a career spanning more than 30 years.

A shame really when the 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide had this to say: "Frank Zappa dabbled in virtually all kinds of music—and, whether guised as a satirical rocker, jazz-rock fusionist, guitar virtuoso, electronics wizard, or orchestral innovator, his eccentric genius was undeniable".

More recently in the trade mark news, in Düsseldorf a court considered the action of the Gail Zappa Frank’s widow and her Zappa Family Trust over the use of the word mark ZAPPA, registered as a Community trade mark. The alleged infringement related to the Zappanale, an annual meeting of Zappa fans.

The Zappa Family Trust has been accused of over policing use of the Zappa ‘mark’ and a 3000 signature petition has been raised by fans to ‘Stop Gail’.

The meeting / festival is in former East Germany (where Zappa was banned) and has seen over 20,000 festival goers.  Clearly has the mark in the title but also involves many uses of the Zappa name and image.  Gail Zappa is particularly opposed to the merchandising of the not for profit festival. 

The Trust itself had used the word "Zappa", it appears, only as part of the "official" Zappa website URL, which operated from the US.

The court concluded that such use did not constitute genuine use of the trade mark (Article 15(1) CTMR), in contrast to the first instance decision of the Landgericht Düsseldorf.  The court did concede that the use of a mark in a domain name may be sufficient for constituting genuine use in principle. The public would consider the use of the word Zappa as a general descriptive reference, and would not understand such use as a reference to the trade mark owner.

A decision reminiscent of the Arsenal case in the UK.

Meanwhile Dweezil is playing Liverpool on 25 July 2010.