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When Trademark Protection Gets Ridiculous
An anonymous reader writes: "Sellotape New Zealand Limited have recently sent out a number of letters to New Zealanders who have used the word 'Sellotape' on their websites. Sellotape is a brand of adhesive tape. It appears they are attempting to crack down on the use of their trademark in a colloquial/generic sense out of fear that their Trademark value is being diluted and that they may even lose the rights to the mark under proposed new New Zealand legislation. Many of those who have received these letters and/or heard about it regard this as monumentally stupid. One such group of individuals has gone as far as setting up a web-site dedicated to parodying the situation and informing the New Zealand public what they can do to fight back against these 'Big Business Bullies.'"
Unfortunatly some of the fault rests with the government in this case. They really don't leave the company that much of a choice, either sue the people who are using it in a generic way, or lose substantial rights to the mark.
I made a MIPS compatable CPU and they told me off for it and threatened a lot of legal action.
After pointing out I didnt break any of their IPs they started complaining that I was calling it a MIPS reather than a MIPS microprocessor. Apparently this dilutes their TM.
They didnt want to conseed on the fact that MIPS stands for "Microprocessor without interlocking pipelines".
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Sellotape(R) is to the rest of the world what Scotch Tape is to the US.
... when I read a manual (yes! some of us do read 'em) and continually see blah(TM) this blah® that in every sentence. There's just no need.
So it's more a case of watering-down the documentation than watering down the trademark recognition.
And anyway, in some parts of the world (Oz, for one) the name for Sellotape is actually Durex, which also happens to be the brand of condoms sold in the UK. In other words, people *know* what the product is, because of the context in which it is used. We don't need (TM) or ® to remind us!
Companies are forced to do stuff like this to keep Trademarks. See: "Is pepsi Ok?" in eateries when one asks for a Coke; the generic term Asprin, etc etc.
It sounds to me like Sellotape is being fairly reasonable about the whole thing, even allowing continued use of the mark, provided that it's documented correctly.
Why does this make Sellotape the bad guys? They're trying to protect a valuable asset, and doing it in a pretty non-heavy handed way. I read the letter, and it didn't threaten legal action in the way that sort of letter typically does, it merely requested proper use of a trademark..
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
You make an intersting point. I think the best fix would be something as follows:
It is intolerable that letigious thuggary can be used to coerce the common use of language. If (for example) SnowBlowz become a generic term for nasal drip suppressent, then the company can revert to "Johnson & Johnson SnowBlowz" as their trademark instead.
This regime that encourages, even requires, the wholesale attack of individuals by corporations for using their trademark in common everyday language is absolutely intolerable.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Not sure - in the UK, sellotape looks like plastic (shiny, can't be written on, distorts rather than tear) while scotch tape is matt, can be written on and tears much more easily.
-=DaveHowe=-
Has anyone ever calculated the lost revenue from all this worthless legal action. The costs seem to break down as this to me:
1. Time spent figuring out we need to wast money going after the average Joe for using modern vernaculer.
2. Getting the lawyers/whoever to do the research to find all the people using "our Trademark" in the wrong way or for the wrong reason and find their addresses (involves meetings and possibly multiple people researching, factor in multiple people).
3. Have the lawyers draft a letter (this could involve meetings, so factor in mulitple people).
4. Approving the letter (requires meetings, you get the point).
5. Send the letter certified mail, as that is the only "legal" method (only one person, but sending a couple hundrend letter certified return reciept isn't cheap).
6. Wait for replies and monitor sites.
7. Assuming they do or don't reply, go from there.
My guess is this costs hundrends of millions a year, if not billions, and for the most part does little other then give lawyers jobs. Oh well.
Big noises at odds over the sound of silencet ory=30744 9
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?s
From the daily rotten:
http://www.dailyrotten.com/
Cheers,
-b
I've got to say, that I really don't see the problem.
They didn't sue the person or anything like that. It's simply a nicely phrased letter from the company asking them to either replace the phrase with a generic one (sticky-tape), or place a registered trademark symbol after it.
That's all.
It was rather pleasant in fact. And makes perfect sense. As I would agree (not with the law, but with the action taken in response), that if I had been making a product, under a certain brand-name for 50 years. And this brandname is in danger of OTHER people being allowed to use it. I would defend it.
Otherwise, suddenly everyone is selling your brand name, and there is no distinction between your 'good product' that everyone has come to love, and the next guys cheap ripoff!
In The Netherlands, we call all kinds of sticky tape -- even Sellotape -- "plakband", which means, unsurprisingly, "sticky tape".
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.