06/27/18 12:00pm

Buc-ee’s scored a sweeping victory in Texas federal court last month when a judge found rival rest stop chain Choke Canyon guilty of 4 wrongs: trademark infringement, dilution, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment. But the battle might not be over: “Choke Canyon is expected to appeal,“ reports Law360, “and Texas intellectual property experts say the store has a strong case that it was wrongly barred at trial from presenting key defense evidence.”

Among the facts unheard during the 4-day trial: findings from an expert Choke Canyon commissioned to ask 300 people what they thought of the logos’ similarity. 99 percent of them “said there was no likelihood of confusion,” between the two.

Then there are the images that went unseen during the jury’s deliberation. Within that 6-hour period, jurors’ first question to Judge Keith P. Ellison was whether they should compare the set of logos pictured above — which includes the brands’ names — or picture-only versions, like the ones shown below:

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Anatomy of the Case
11/18/16 4:15pm

Air New Zealand Houston Piece

The glossed-up scene above, which shows a pushing-its-limits White Oak Bayou flirting with the lower edge of the Height Hike and Bike Trail bridge, made an appearance in this month’s edition of Kia Ora, Air New Zealand’s in-flight magazine. A sky-high peruser on Reddit noticed the article, which is currently employing the flood photo to promote Houston and several other Texas cities as tourist destinations. The original source looks to be a Getty Images contributor who captioned the shot (along with another expansively aquatic view from 2015) as stock images of Downtown Houston in the rain. For comparison with the normal scenic view of Downtown’s northernmost freeway tangle, below is a recent shot of that trail construction near the Leonel Castillo Community Center, which caught the same angle and foliage (minus the high water, but plus some heavy equipment):

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Water Under the Bridge
07/19/16 1:45pm

EVOLVING FORMS OF PANDERING TO POKEMON PLAYERS Pokemon Go Screenshot at Bohemeo's, 708 Telephone Rd., Eastwood, Houston 77023Looking for ways to lure the hordes of virtual gamers sent wandering through actual streets by the Pokemon Go app, which has surpassed Twitter in terms of daily users? You’re not the only one — last week the city promoter types at HoustonFirst Corporation published a guide to the Pokemon ecology of select Houston tourist destinations, from the Rothko Chapel to the Kemah Boardwalk and NASA. And Kyle Haggerty writes this week that while businesses around town can already pay small fees inside the game world to make extra Pokemon (and Pokemon players) show up near their brick-and-mortar locations, filling your store with phone-enraptured bodies could get easier: Niantic has announced plans to let businesses directly buy their way into the landscape with formal sponsorship deals. [Houston BisNow] Screenshot of Doduo at Bohemeo’s at 708 Telephone Rd.: Lauren Meyers

04/01/16 10:15am

3516 Montrose Blvd. Signs and violation notices, First Montrose Commons, Houston, 77006

3516 Montrose Blvd. Signs and violation notices, First Montrose Commons, Houston, 77006

The big blue sign wrapping around the lot at the northeast corner of Montrose Blvd. and Marshall St. got decorated with a dayglow red tag from the city this week, calling for the banner’s removal. The sign is advertising the midrise condominium building planned for the lot at 3615 Montrose, formerly the site of the River Cafe; the Philip Johnson/ Alan Ritchie design’s footprint also extends into the lot to the north, whose slated-for-destruction 1910 brick house is currently gigging as a sales center for the development. The shot above looks due south at the angled northernmost portion of the sign, toward the intersection of Montrose and W. Alabama St.

Tags from a city inspector call out the “130 x 8 x 10”-ft. ground sign, as well as its smaller next-door companion piece, which refers to the condo building as “The Glass House” (no, not that one). Here’s what the whole scene looks like from up in the air, from the Parc IV tower across Montrose:

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Montrose at Marshall