A German entrepreneur has taken bad taste to new heights – applying for a federal trademark to use the Freedom Tower to market a line of condoms.
The request now before the US Patent and Trademark Office has 9/11 families howling and the tower’s owner, the Port Authority, scrambling to block it.
“It boggles my mind as to how someone could use the name ‘Freedom Tower’ on a package of condoms,” fumed Jack Lynch, whose firefighter son, Michael, died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I find it very offensive. The idea that anyone would use something associated with 9/11 to promote any product is upsetting. But to promote condoms, that goes a step beyond.”
The Munich-based marketer, Torsten Blueher, has an application to use the slogan “Freedom Tower Make Love Not War” on condom packaging. He also has applied separately to use the tower’s name on dozens of other products.
The feds have yet to issue a final determination on the request.
PA officials have already begun efforts to block Blueher’s trademark application.