
 
 Jeb Bush pauses as he is asked a question from the audience at the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum during a campaign stop Dec. 1 in Waterloo, Iowa. (Matthew Putney/The Courier via AP) 
 
 This post has been updated. 
 
 A nice catch by Mother Jones: A trademark application for the enthusiastic appellation "Jeb!" has been abandoned. 
 
 Jeb!, of course, is the preferred wordmark for one John Ellis Bush, better known as "Jeb." Better known as Jeb:( these days, given that he is now polling in seventh place, according to the just-released CNN/ORC poll. 
 
 Jeb uses Jeb! with the exclamation point in his campaign material in the way that you say "lol" to someone over text even though you maybe only smiled. Well before he was an official candidate, in January of this year, the application was filed by a group apparently aligned with Bush to reserve its exclusive right to use "Jeb!" on cool products like mousepads, money clips and golf towels. (Those are all identified in the application filing, among a lot of other things.) But as Mother Jones's Russ Choma notes, that trademark has been abandoned, as the parlance has it, its filer having not provided consent from Bush to use his name. 
 
 This is a metaphor. 
 
 Jeb! (or someone presumably acting on his behalf) wanted to trademark Jeb!, the print representation of the candidate that would take America by storm. Look out world, the application implied, here comes Jeb!!! Here is what has happened to Jeb's poll numbers since the filing. 
 
 Jeb. The Jeb! trademark application has been abandoned. That exclamation point is not needed. 
 
 It also goes a level deeper. The trademark application is meant to keep ne'er-do-wells from offering up Jeb! merchandise for sale, lining their own pockets instead of Jeb!'s. The abandonment of the mark allows anyone to start selling Jeb! stuff without recrimination. (See update below before you start cranking out windbreakers, though.) 
 
 But there's clearly no demand to do so. Bush came into the race as the financial heavyweight — thanks to $100 million-plus in money raised to a super PAC endorsing him. His campaign's finances, though, have struggled, slashing costs back in October. You can buy lots of Jeb! stuff at the Jeb! campaign store, but people clearly aren't buying enough of it. The trademark wasn't terribly valuable anyway because there's not really any money to be made from selling anything with Jeb! on it. This ain't Nike. 
 
 Anyway, if you want to make poor Jeb:( even sadder, you're now apparently free to sell your own Jeb! mousepads. You will not make $100 million doing so. 
 
 Updated with heartbreaking news: The Bush campaign tells us that the trademark was associated with Bush's time as governor, and that they didn't trademark it in the context of the campaign. That said, they can still shut you down if they don't like the Jeb! stuff you're selling. You are warned. ||||| Looking for news you can trust? 
 
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 Perfect last-minute Christmas present for the low-energy person in your life who needs an extra exclamation point: Jeb! 
 
 Not the candidate, just his name—upbeat punctuation mark and all. The word has apparently lost its appeal. Even to the candidate. 
 
 Last winter, months before Jeb Bush announced he was running for president, a Miami intellectual property attorney filed a trademark request for the word “Jeb!” on behalf of a mysterious Delaware corporation called BHAG LLC. As we discovered this summer, BHAG was an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This phrase came from one of Bush’s favorite business management books, and when he was governor he used this term to motivate his underlings. It wasn’t until Bush, as a declared candidate, filed his financial disclosure form in July that the world learned he directly owned BHAG. 
 
 One of BHAG’s few activities was to trademark “Jeb!” As is par for the course, the US Patent and Trademark Office accepted the submission and requested additional information before it would grant the trademark. But according to that office, on November 9 Bush’s application was officially abandoned. Technically, Bush has until January 9 to restart the process, but for now the name is not trademarked and open for anyone else to try to grab. 
 
 According to the original application, Bush wanted the name reserved for use on leather key chains, stadium cushions, stemware, stuffed toys, hair bands, and other cool stuff. In April, the USPTO asked BHAG to provide, within six months, written consent from Bush himself to use his name. Bush never responded. So the USPTO issued an abandonment notice regarding the trademark request. 
 
 Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. 
 
 To be fair, Bush has had many other things to worry about these past few months. But his chief antagonist, Donald Trump, did find the time to re-up his hold on “Trump,” and he added a trademark claim to cover the use of his name for books on how to succeed in business and politics.
– Jeb Bush has abandoned his trademark for "Jeb!," Mother Jones reports. Perhaps it was getting harder to muster the enthusiasm necessary for an exclamation point when your polling numbers suggest something closer to Jeb? or Jeb[shrugging emoticon]. According to the Washington Post, Bush is currently sitting around seventh in the Republican presidential field. Mother Jones reports Bush's BHAG LLC—it stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal—filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office to use Jeb! on "leather key chains, stadium cushions, stemware, stuffed toys, hair bands, and other cool stuff" last winter. But Bush failed to give written permission to the Patent and Trademark Office to use his name for the trademark, and Jeb! was considered abandoned last month, Mother Jones reports. That means anyone is free to start selling Jeb! brand merchandise, though the Post certainly wouldn't recommend it. "The trademark wasn't terribly valuable anyway because there's not really any money to be made from selling anything with Jeb! on it," the paper states. "This ain't Nike." Meanwhile, Mother Jones points out Bush's personal Blofeld, Donald Trump, not only renewed his trademark on "Trump" but took out a new trademark for the use of his name on books about how to succeed in politics.