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American Red Cross Sued For Using a Red Cross
Swampash sends us a story that even this community may find hard to believe. Johnson & Johnson, the health-products giant that uses a red cross as its trademark, is suing the American Red Cross, demanding the charity halt its use of the red cross symbol on products it sells to the public. It seems J&J began using the trademark in 1887, 6 years after the Red Cross was formed, but 13 years before the charitable organization was chartered by Congress. Lately the ARC has begun licensing the symbol to third parties to use on fund-raising products such as home emergency kits.
You have to defend your trademark or lose it. But, come on this is a dog and pony show they WANT to people to look at J&J products and think "oh! the red cross!"
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Leave it to big pharma to release the legal hounds. I guess the profit margins must be getting pretty slim for them to start harassing the ARC. Most likely they don't want anyone to think they are handing out relief supplies to people suffering from disasters... think what that would do to investor confidence.... handing out stuff for free!?? Horrors.... No, no, no! Handouts bad! Profit good!
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At the bottom of the
They didn't have the right to do that and that's why this is a case.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Which is exactly why the Red Cross has been putting a lot of effort for years into tightening their grip on that mark. Let's be clear about something, people. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to root for the charitable organization over the big corporation, but I've got to point out a little hypocrisy on the part of the Red Cross president. I have never before seen a cease-and-desist letter from Johnson & Johnson for the use of this mark. I have, however, seen them from the Red Cross.
Some years ago I worked for a company that publishes clip art collections. We maintained a list of "bad elements" that slipped into our sources because it didn't occur to the artists that they were protected by IP law, but that we had received legal notices about. The red cross was one of our biggest offenders (alongside Weber-shaped grills, Olympic rings, cars that looked too much like Beetles, etc.). It was the ARC, not Johnson & Johnson, that made work for me converting them all to puke green. (That's the standard IP-neutral first aid symbol now, by the way: a butt-ugly fluorescent green cross.) I'd often wondered how Johnson & Johnson got away with it, and figured they must have some sort of agreement since they'd both been using it for so long.
So you're right that the defensibility of ownership for either of them is a little iffy, but the fact that I've started to see that horrible green in more places means that it's starting to become known that somebody owns it. My gut tells me that it's usually the ARC that people think of (or get letters from), but if they're now starting to directly compete in the market with Johnson & Johnson, who knows which way a judge or jury would go?
It's fascinating how such incredibly bad decisions get made. Maybe they've hired Donald Rumsfeld as an advisor?
This news story seems to be off-topic from the stated mission of this site.
If they want to change it from "News for Nerds" to "News for Anti-Corporate Bigots" or "News for Politically-Correct Drug Company Haters" then this would be a perfect story. It's even got the half-truths and misleading spin in the summary that seems to appeal to bigots and haters these days.
How dare they try to protect their trademark anyway?
Doesn't matter where the profits went. If the relicensing broke a contract, J&J has the right to sue based on that breach of contract.
Wow, reading the posts so far seems to indicate that most people did not RTFA. This is not a simple trademark dispute. J&J and ARC had an agreement going back to the 1880's that seems to stipulate that J&J would have sole use of the red cross symbol for marketing commercial medical products (a business the ARC was not and did not intend to be in). The problem now is that the ARC is marketing products in stores, using the red cross symbol, that compete with J&J products. J&J sees this as a violation of the long-standing agreement between the two organizations even knowing that the profits feed back into the charity. At least this is my understanding of this situation.
This is a most interesting point! Perhaps J&J bringing this case out will actually benefit the public. I can see BOTH the ARC and J&J losing rights to the mark since the IRC (International Red Cross) had been using the mark before either of the two.
If they both lose, we all win.
The question to me is whether J+J even had any rights to register the trademark, seeing as how it was already an established and protected symbol in Geneva conventions well before J+J registered it (1864).
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They agreed to JnJ's use of the cross logo, as you said, "for certain medical products", but that doesn't mean that JnJ all of a sudden now has exclusive rights.
Neither organization has exclusive rights to it - it is an internationally-accepted symbol, as per the Geneva Convention, a year prior to the trademark registration. That being the case, JnJ are out of line. They have no trademark rights except on those medical devices, and those trademark rights don't take away anyone else's rights to use the symbol.
At this point in time neither JnJ nor the ARC has the right to license its use to others. They're both in the wrong, but JnJ is a lot more in the wrong - the IRC can at least claim that the symbol originated with them.
Its still non profit; the proceeds from the kids sold by the ARC go to disaster relief funds.
I really don't care if some company is harmed by an entity that is honestly helping those in need.
In the article, I didn't see that ARC licenses the trademark from J&J. Where are you getting that from?
Look, there is a reason why the rest of the world does not like many things coming from the US, one of them is the monetization and commercialization of everything. Maybe the US Red Cross behaves like that, but in other countries that is not the case. SOmething you fail to see as well is that in a conflict zone they are not there to support your military, they are there to support the injured, whatever their nationality.
The Red Cross in other countries is the last resource for people that otherwise would not receive any medical help, and they do this for free. As for their role in conflict zones like Palestine, it is well documented the heroics to which they go to help victims of military or terrorist attacks.
It has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 3 different occasions for their outstanding contributions in zones of conflict.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As to other things, I can see how it comes about that ARC is being sued as they have started to go to J&J competitors to allow use of the red cross for products, and the previous understanding is therefore being violated. It seems like early on some sort of agreement was reached that both ARC and J&J could use the symbol, but for different applications. In this case, medical supplies and charity medical aid seem *really* close and hard to distinguish, so it gets a bit strange. It might be the case that if J&J started a for-profit blood-blank with big red crosses on their trucks, that ARC could sue them. Kinda like how Apple computers and music *were* trademarked in their separate industries, and neither was legally allowed to infringe on the other (of course, that all changed).r
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You complain about not using money for a specific cause, but would you complain about the times when they give more to a cause than they get in donations for that cause? Where the hell do you think all that money comes from.
You seem to have a misguided idea of what the concept of non-profit means. It doesn't mean they don't make a profit off of any specific activity. They are more than welcome to make huge profits of anything they do as long as those profits are used elsewhere charitably. The idea of being non-profit simply means any excess revenue isn't distributed to shareholders.
Its a red cross. Its not a fancy logo, a clever play on words or something that took a large amount of time and effort to design. Its a cross, one that's red. Should that really be patentable? I mean, I may as well patent all green rectangles and sue everyone with a lawn. I'm all for protecting people intellectual property, but its just a red cross. Its known throughout the world as a symbol of aid, charity and medicine not a pharmaceutical company. Where did all the common sense go?
The red cross trademark has been "destroyed" for a long time, in the minds of many people. There are a huge number of people out there who associate the red cross trademark with the Red Cross organization, and think that they permit its use on approved medical supplies and home aid kids.
No matter how 'in-the-right' JnJ are with defending their trademark, for a lot of people, they don't associate it with JnJ, but with the Red Cross. JnJ are shooting themselves in the feet with this, since it is so easy to manufacture some bad press and make them look like the bad guys. And considering how gullible and sheepish so many people are...
I have to be honest, that I think it would have been wiser for JnJ to either give the trademark to the Red Cross with an agreement that JnJ can use it on their products, or quietly switch to a new trademark that hasn't already been "lost" in the minds of so many.
Calling a sword by a pretty name is no more than adding perfume to poison.
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Save that shit, please. Regurgitating an Ann Landers column and pretending it happened to you is pathetic, so tell your "grandfather" to shut his lying fucking mouth.
"A persistent comment by many veterans of World War II is their memory of the American Red Cross selling "comfort items" such as toothpaste and cigarettes to the troops. The American Red Cross acknowledges that they did indeed sell such items, and the unfortunate repercussions have marred the agency's name for many years. In response to such allegations, the American Red Cross responded:[14]
* At the request of the Secretary of War, the American Red Cross charged a nominal fee for coffee and doughnuts, as well as for lodging, barber and valet services, in stationary military installations overseas. It did not charge in mobile facilities such as Clubmobiles.
* This request was made because other agencies working overseas were compelled to charge for similar items. Giving these items free to U.S. service members would, it was feared, demoralize Allied troops.
* The official War Department recommendation was made in a letter dated May 20, 1942, written by Mr. Stimson, Secretary of War, and addressed to the Chairman of The American National Red Cross."
This story always pops up, and it's always some jackass like you repeating a story that some other jackass told him. If you had said "In WW2 my gramps said..." then you'd have something, but even then your context is garbage.
But Korea? Never happened. Either you or gramps is lying.
True. But nowhere in the Geneva Convention is that special protection extended to commercial usage - it only describes the usage of the symbol on buildings, vehicles, and persons.
It seems to me that you should consider what the Convention says, not what you wish it says.
While this looks petty, my sympathies go with J&J. The Red Cross is a political organization above all, any apparent good they do is probably collateral damage.
I volunteered for a rather large branch a number of years ago. While not unfamiliar with the evils of local politics, these guys were ugly. They would have volunteers call up local restaurants to order lunch for the staff and then pull the "but we're the Red Cross, you're just going to donate it, right?" The concern was getting donations and being seen, but any ideas that might do good were seen as expenses to the current money making machine.
I did their website for free, only asking my name be left on as designer until the next redesign. The next redesign took place the next day, it seemed to only involve taking my name off. I wanted to help the braille department, which was fascinating. I reworked some of their forms and spreadsheets, but I just couldn't take the place any more.
On 11-Sep-2001 this particular chapter, within 40 miles of ground zero, refused to mobilize citing distance. Local police and firemen from the same area were moved in immediately. Of course, when the dust settled, the group did take any money given to them. I gave up shortly after that.
If J&J wants their logo forbidden to the Red Cross it's probably more than just a whim. Chances are some group was invoking some kind of J&J association that made the company uncomfortable.
You are forgetting one IMPORTANT thing..J&J use the mark for business and have an agreement with ARC that ARC uses it for NON-profit activities. ARC has recently SOLD licenses for use of the mark to OTHER BUSINESSES that compete with J&J. ARC did not have the legal right to sell the mark for use by businesses, especially those that compete with J&J.
You guys are missing the point about the Red Cross symbol.
i on
The Red Cross is internationally recognized as a neutral body. Specifically if it's marked with a red cross on a white background, attacking, defacing, or generally being a dick to it is an international war crime.
This HAS to be protected. Period. There is no discussion on this matter -- the sanctity of the Red Cross / Crystal / Crescent is beyond paramount. These red cross workers have to be recognized internationally as neutral civilian aid workers, and any dilution of that isn't just sick and wrong, it's against international law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cross
More specifically, the first Geneva Convention is the one that founded the Red Cross and defined it's emblem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Geneva_Convent
J&J is going up against the Geneva Convention and International law. They are is not going to win this.