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Canadian Mint Claims Rights To Words "One Cent"
knorthern knight writes "A weird intersection of copyright/trademark with politics is playing out in Canada. Short background: various Canadian cities and municipalities have launched a publicity/lobbying campaign seeking a fixed take from the GST (Goods and Services Tax, a national Canadian sales tax similar to European VAT). The amount sought is 1 cent for each dollar of the purchase price. This is summarized by the slogan 'One Cent of the GST NOW.' According to a press release, the Royal Canadian Mint (the federal agency that prints Canadian paper currency and stamps Canadian coins) has demanded from the City of Toronto $47,680 in royalties for use of the phrase 'one cent', and the image of the Canadian penny. $10,000 covers the use of the words 'one cent' in the campaign website address (www.onecentnow.ca) and email address (onecentnow@toronto.ca). An additional $10,000 is demanded for the use of these words in the campaign phone number (416-ONE-CENT). The remaining $27,680 covers the use of the image of the Canadian penny in printed materials such as pins and posters." Here's a National Post article on the brouhaha.
> I thought the Romans had the cent long before Canada.
ummmm, no. They had the denarius. That's why British LSd money referred to their _penny_ as 1d -- d for denarius.
And a _penny_ was not the same thing as a _cent_. There were 240 "old" pence in the pound.
Those of us on {Dollars|Euros|Pesos|Rands|etc.}, and Cent(avo)s are using new fangled decimal money that came much later on.
Maybe the US Mint should insist they get paid instead...
Oh, and the Royal Canadian Mint isn't a "Federal Agency". It's a Crown Corporation (status similar to the US Post Office).
- "You have mail" AOL
- "Hall of Fame" National Baseball Hall of Fame
- "Entrepreneur" Entreprenour Media
- "Windows" Microsoft (ruled generic 1993)
- "Memory game" Ravensburger (a website I maintain was involved in that once)
Tradmarking common vocabulary is as questionable as patenting common tasks. The problem is that it is often cheaper to pay off than go through a legal fight. And that encourages the litigators. The good thing is that such battles usually are PR desasters for the companies involved.Panic now, beat the rush!
Hmm. I'm Canadian and I haven't heard of this...
Just a correction to the summary: The Canadian Mint doesn't print paper currency.
"The Bank of Canada" prints paper currency.
"The Royal Canadian Mint" only makes coins.
Nope. The Royal Canadian Mint stamps coins only. The Bank of Canada is responsible for paper money, the actual printing of which is performed by Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited and BA International Inc (formerly British American Banknote).
No, but (odd bit of trivia), they did have the census, which measured someone's total wealth, and eventually morphed into Zins in German, their word for (bank) interest.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
The tax in question (the GST) already exists as a 6% (formerly 7%) sales tax, all the money goes to the Federal Government.
The goal of the campaign is to take 1/6th of the revenue from the tax and give it to Municipal governments. So they don't want a new tax, they want to shift what the existing tax pays for.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
When it comes to Canada, 50 Cent is already screwed
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
Using the USofAn/English style decimal POINTS:
21,646 ton / 4,678,000 coins =
21,646,000 kg / 4,678,000 coins
~~ 4.627 kg / coin
(which would be a quite heavy penny IMHO)
I suspect each Canadian penny weights 4.627 _g_ per coin, so it would be
21.646 ton (21646 kg) per 4678000, ie, _ONE_ 40-tonner truck half-full of pennies.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Uh..... Loons don't quack.
I spend at least a week every year up on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. The place is riddled with loons. I hear them make all manner of spooky-ass sounds, but I've never heard one quack.
They're not ducks. They're not even in the same order. They don't even look like ducks. Look at their bills.
This as nothing to do about "coins", other than that is the subject. (wow make sense of that sentence)
Anyway this is about the Canadian Mint claiming copyright on the word "Cent". (Which as a Canadian I am embarrassed)
I think the original post is eluding to the fact that the word "Cent" existed and has been in use long before the Canadian Mint came around (Nor is the Canadian Mint the only one to use it in Monetary terms).
I can understand if a company wants to protect its brand name, as they may have spent a lot of money advertise that name and to promote their product over time, and if another is trying to profit off of that name. However the Canadian Mint's claim in my view is stupid. Is the USA (or whoever was first) going to try and sue us for using the word "Dollar". Not to mention that it is a government institution (corporate or not), makes this even more stupid (Particularly when targeting another branch of Government. Your all generally on the same team, play nice!).
It's not a joke, but the mint will lose in court.
Kevin Smith on Prince
No, you misunderstand. The tax is already at 6%. The cities have long complained that they do not receive enough support from the federal government for infrastructure costs, so this publicity campaign is trying to put pressure on the federal gov't to dedicate part of the GST (1/6th of it) directly to the cities. Right now Ottawa gives money to the municipalities mostly on an ad hoc basis, whereas a cut of the GST would give cities a steady and dependable stream of income that would make it easier to invest in long-term infrastructure projects (Vancouver's Evergreen Skytrain line, I'm looking at you!).