A company from Minnesota is on the threshold of obtaining a trademark for the name ‘Hammer-Schlagen®.’ If you’re unfamiliar with “Stump“ as we like to call it, the game requires one flip a hammer, catch it mid-air, then hammer a nail– all in in one swift motion.
We call it ‘Stump’ but lots of others (*especially mid-westerners) call it Hammer-Schlagen®. The patent office is expected to finalize a patent that includes a rare inclusion of ‘trade dress‘ that will apply to the game’s general 3-dimensional design.
Ever? https://t.co/sBXDK2yalA
— UnofficialNetworks (@UnofficialNet) August 8, 2018
We went to www.hammerschalgen.com and boy was it a treat. According to their brand page… “Officially, our trade dress is described as a three-dimensional trademark comprised of a cylindrical cross-section of a tree with nails positioned around the outer circumference of its upward facing flat circular surface and a cross-peen hammer[3].”
That is nuts! They literally trademarked a cross section of wood accompanied by nails, IN A CIRCLE. That said, I gotta give it to these Minnesotans for getting legal with it and cornering the STUMP market. That is some grade A determination.
The History of Hammerschalgen:
Sometime in the mid to late 1980’s, Mike took over Carl’s brand of nail driving competition. Not only did Mike standardized the use of cottonwood cross-sections and 16d common bright nails, but also gave it the Hammer-Schlagen® name. (The German word “Hammerschlagen” is a verb meaning, loosely, to beat with a hammer; in example “Sie Hammerschlagen mich” means “you are beating me with a hammer.” Our trade name is a variation of this German compound.)
Their misconceptions page claims that you can’t commercially market the game using another name such as Stump. That seems a little excessive but leave it to Minnesota to get dead serious about hammering nails into a piece of timber.
You gotta check out the video on the Hammer-Schlagen® homepage:
Is this a game of Stump or a swingers convention?
