Group Serious About 'Light Up Night' Name

"Light Up Night" in Mt. Lebanon will be no more, thanks to a cease-and-desist letter that the municipality received from the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (PDP), the group in charge of the "Light Up Night" held in downtown Pittsburgh.

According to this article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Mt. Lebanon was the first of up to 20 more towns to receive these letters since the PDP owns the federal trademark for the name.

Our commercial districts manager, Eric Milliron, was interviewed about the article where he refers to ours as being a "Mayberry event". While I understand that the PDP wants to protect their trademark (and has every right to), I disagree with the comment from Michael E. Edwards, the PDP's CEO (also a Mt. Lebanon resident), where he states the following:

"We were a little concerned, with Mt. Lebanon in particular, that they were advertising theirs (to be held) the night before ours. We thought it blurred our brand a bit," Edwards said.

Is there anyone that quite honestly would confuse the two events or think that they were offering competitive programs that would make people decide between attending one or the other? As Mr. Edwards states, the Mt. Lebanon event is held the night before the Pittsburgh event, so if anything, I'm betting a number of people actually attended both events instead of picking one over the other.

Read more: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_658168.html