Richard Branson's Trademark Enforcers Take on Olive Oil, Jane the Virgin

Over the last four decades, Richard Branson has turned music retailer Virgin Records into a global conglomerate that includes Virgin airlines, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Mobile, and dozens of enterprises under that brand. Now anyone else trying to get into the virgin business had better watch out for Branson's trademark lawyers.

Last year, Branson’s company opposed a trademark registration for Virgin Valley Cab, a taxi company in an area of Northwest Arizona and Southeast Nevada called the Virgin Valley. It also moved to block a registration by Las Virgenes Educational Foundation, a nonprofit serving the Las Virgenes United School District in Southern California. In July, Virgin Group fired a shot across the bow of CBS Studios, asking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for three separate extensions on the deadline to oppose a trademark registration for the television sitcom Jane the Virgin.