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NYSE Sends Cease and Desist Letter To News Organization
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, the New York Stock Exchange has registered a trademark for their trading floor, and they claim that no one can use a photograph of the trading floor without permission."
Fight it all the way. Taking a picture of something that is open for a news story is perfectly allowed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe they don't want anymore facepalm shots, reflecting the true economy, eh?
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Especially considering their reputation isn't tarnished already. I mean, it's not like they are partly responsible for one of the worse recessions in 100 years.
A: Because the use of trademarks associated with a company is perfectly legal in the context of a news story about that company.
B: I don't need a B. But a company is NOT entitled to use the courts to prevent "harm" caused by the public becoming aware of their own failures.
If the event is newsworthy (and if they're allowing press in there already) I don't see how a location can be trademarked. Which part of the trading floor? All parts? Every floorboard? Or are they just generally saying that a crowded group of yuppies in suits wearing bluetooth headsets falls under their IP?
By that logic the owners of any readily identifiable building or monument should be able to do the same. That's batshit crazy.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
If this ends up being upheld we can pretty much kiss any photographic evidence of civil wrongdoing goodbye... Obviously the point, but really? They're getting pretty damn brazen.
I'm not sure if my transmitter is correctly tuned to reach the twilight zone; but I'll try:
The press writes articles about stuff. Sometimes, those articles cast actors and organizations in a less than positive light. If this is what they deserve, the press is performing one of the more socially vital functions around. If it is undeserved, they can be be taken to court for libel. "Trademark" is intended to protect a company's distinctive marks from being used deceptively in the marketplace, not to give an entity the legal right to insist that its nose be kept clean, no matter how dirty it might be.
Use of trademarks as a graphical shorthand or accent to make the reader immediately aware of who you are writing about is perfectly valid, and indeed quite logical. If what you are writing about happens to be bad behavior on the part of the trademark holder, perhaps they ought to try behaving better.
This isn't about somebody going after "Nokla" brand phones, this is about the NYSE using spurious trademark claims in an attempt to gag the press.
The C&D was referring to an article that could harm NYSE's reputation, so why should the organization just sit idly by and be tarnished?
Boohoo? Unless the article is found by a court to be libelous, why should they be able to stamp out people reporting facts that the NYSE doesn't like to be publicized? What next? The President, members of Congress, etc get to C&D stories that show their misdeed to the public?
... another corporation using laws that were designed to further the public good to take away the right to free speech. Nothing unusual. Probably shouldn't even be considered 'news' anymore.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Considering the location has been photographed infinite times and lots of video before this decision, how can it ever be enforced?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
The news story wasn't directly about that company, though. It was about an overzealous FBI agent revealing an FBI investigation into an insider trading scheme. By throwing the trading floor picture onto the article, the publisher implies that NYSE itself is a part of the insider trading.
The NYSE is perfectly justified in using the legal system to stop libel and trademark dilution. That's probably what their perspective is, and I doubt very much this will ever even reach a court. They sent a letter. There's no indication of a lawsuit yet, but they've made enough fuss to show they're protecting their trademark.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
A photograph of a location cannot be trademarked, if that were the case, then they would have to trademark every and any photograph of a place. Suppose that the claim that a photograph of a particular place can be trademarked... Taking the following into account, angle, zoom level, color variance, etc...Every photographic variation should also be trademarked. But this would not fall under the definition of a trademark, and not even a trade dress... A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark[1] is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
this actually is true. I worked at an agency in NY that sent out a little flash based " christmas card" to its clients every year . One year, it was going to have the tree at Rockefeller and the skating rink in the background. As this was for a commercial purpose, we actually would have to clear copyrights and trademarks to use the image. The issue wasnt who owned or took the picture, the issue was actually the content. The image was replaced instead of paying for the rights to use that image.
I'm pretty sure that "trading floor" goes back a ways. Like maybe 10,000 years or so. So does "a bunch of loud mouths standing around shouting prices". You can take a picture of people doing this kinda thing in every major city in the world, 24 hours a day, and could have do so at any time since the invention of the camera in 1837.
Prior art bitches.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
NYSE is an exchange company. They are not investors, they do not tell banks to accept bad loans, and don't really do much of anything that caused the recession. Blaming NYSE is like blaming Ford for a bank robbery, because the robbers drove a Ford getaway car.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The NYSE trading floor depicted in the photo is mostly irrelevant with, presumably, most, trades being done electronically.
Furthermore, the NYSE itself is no longer the NYSE alone ... it's part of a larger company, NYSE Euronext.
Ron
Use a photo of the garbage-filled gutter in front of the NYSE, or maybe Bernie Madoff, or a simple graphic of a downward-trending chart with the words FRAUD superimposed.
Are they also then responsible for all the good times?
NYSE? Were they a trading platform for credit default swaps? I get that many active participants on the floor are partly responsible, but I haven't heard anything about the stock exchanges being culpable.
The article in question isn't about the NYSE, though. It's about an FBI investigation. Attaching a NYSE trademark implies that NYSE is involved.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The NYSE is perfectly justified in using the legal system to stop libel and trademark dilution.
Then if they think they are being libeled they should *fanfare* file a defamation suit. Secondly, how is it trademark dilution? Was the company using the picture attempting to pass itself off as the NYSEin some way? If not, there is no trademark dilution. Trademark law, despite what you and the idiots at the NYSE think, does not work that way. You don't get to claim trademark to squelch stories that you don't like. Basically you're about as wrong as can be on both the 1st Amendment and trademark law as one can possibly be.
To further add, true "trademark dilution" would, for example, be people who say that one is "Photoshopping" an image to any sort of image manipulation regardless of whether it was truly done in Photoshop. By using the trademarked name in this way, there is an attempt to try to disassociate the trademark with the singular product. There is no such thing in the case of a news story using a picture of the NYSE trade floor.
Owning and controlling something is fine and dandy. Literally trying to own and control the photons that bounce off of your property is too ludicrous for words.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
For those outside the trademarks field, the two reasons for this level of control is to 1) protect the public from unscrupulous use and 2) protect the reputation of the mark. For example, if the company you worked for installed Christmas trees (but not the Rockefeller tree), it could easily be construed that your company installed the tree at Rockefeller Center. As to the second reason, imagine instead that your company produced Agent Orange and you wanted to clean up your image with a picture of the Rockefeller tree. In that case, the folks at Rockefeller Center may not want to be associated with them. Thus, they should have the right to control how their image was used. (Outside of the broad "newsworthiness" exception, of course.)
Gee, maybe I'm wrong. Let's go look it up real quick...
Trademark dilution is a trademark law concept giving the owner of a famous trademark standing to forbid others from using that mark in a way that would lessen its uniqueness. In most cases, trademark dilution involves an unauthorized use of another's trademark on products that do not compete with, and have little connection with, those of the trademark owner.
So there's this news article about the FBI and investment companies, and TPM threw NYSE's trademark on there because... um... why, exactly? Well, maybe because it's a generic "stock trading" image that people will recognize, but it's not generic. It's a trademark. Putting the NYSE image on an unrelated article reinforces the idea that the NYSE is generic, and that certainly would "lessen its uniqueness".
Looks like dilution to me. Reading the actual C&D letter, the NYSE is not at all requesting censorship of the article. They just want the picture removed so they aren't directly associated with an insider trading investigation.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Also, the C&D can only address the image - not the article itself.
Mod parent +1 good analogy
The C&D was referring to an article that could harm NYSE's reputation, so why should the organization just sit idly by and be tarnished?
Yes, of course the NYSE should be able to veto any news articles that aren't sufficiently respectful.That they could sue anyone who published untrue stories as libel isn't enough.
NYSE is an exchange company. They are not investors, they do not tell banks to accept bad loans, and don't really do much of anything that caused the recession. Blaming NYSE is like blaming Ford for a bank robbery, because the robbers drove a Ford getaway car.
They are also a publicly traded company. That right there is the problem. It's like blaming Ford for a bank robbery because the executives at Ford are band robbers.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
True. How trademark law could be used to block news photographs in newspapers is beyond me, however - and I am working in the IP field, not in the US though. What category would they even register for?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
If they allow high frequency trading, they're making a profit from destabilizing the economy. It's time for a tax on transactions.
It's not as simple as 'it's a company just like the company that produces your toilet paper' and you know it. If they even had a grain of decency they would be perfectly able to sound the alarm. The thing is that, the profits involved with being yes-men clearly outweighs the risks. It's more like Ford threw in an 'Robbing The Bank' button that releases caltrops then gives you 10x horsepower, flame thrower and twin jet engines, as well as dispensing clean clothes with passports in them. These kind of companies are well beyond mom and pop private enterprises, they are gambling institutions using countries, property and people as chips. They should have a social responsibility that reflects the position they are in.
Can I light a sig ?
You're thinking patents, I think. Someone sued Lucas over Star Wars copyrights, and lost, iirc. The reason they tried to use was that it had become a common cultural icon. One could say the same thing about Coca-Cola or Disney characters. But neither are in danger of losing their copyrights.
Mickey Mouse is seen everywhere as well. But if you were to take a picture of a tshirt with the Mickey Mouse logo on it, then that photo would possibly be in violation of copyright. It is effectively a reproduction. Of course, it depends a lot on the context of a photo. If you photograph your family at Disney World in front of the castle, which is copyrighted, you are likely allowed to use it to give to family.
However, the question in this case, to me, is more like trying to copyright Times Square or any other well known place. This case will rest mostly on whether or not NYSE has a valid copyright. IANAL
I8-D
So if this is legit then selling a photo taken virtually anywhere in pubilc in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world would be a trademark violation. It is impossible to open your eyes without being assaulted by a dozen corporate trademarks.
The real reason that this is absurd is this: Trademark law is intended to prevent one company from dishonestly associating themselves with the reputation of another company. For instance making a shiny white PC and branding it an ApplePC would obviously be an attempt to deceive the market. When a reporter takes a photo at the NYSE, that reporter is not attempting to fool people that his stock exchange is associated with the NYSE, he is reporting on the news. NYSE also has no need do defend the trademark here since there is no infringement to defend. Reporting is not infringement.
-- QED
It's not a question of category - when news deals with the subject of the trademark, the First Amendment is an absolute defense to infringement. In this case, the article was about insider trading, not about NYSE specifically. There isn't a strong enough link between this specific stock exchange and an illegal act performed by people who may have never even set foot in the NYSE. I'm not sure how it works in your jurisdiction, but here, a cease and desist (C&D) is a letter you send to the offender asking them to stop infringing and if it is ignored, it is often a precursor to a lawsuit.
Trademark law is there to protect a trade mark from being used by someone else to advertise their similar product.The news report did not post a picture and attempt to pass it off as their trading floor. That is dilution of brand and therefore against trademark law. I can use a trademark any time I want as long as it refers to the owner of the trademark. For example, Pepsi can display Coke's Trademark if they are doing a comparison. They do not need a license to do it. I could also write an article about the use of high fructose corn syrup, display a Coke can and Coke could do nothing about it.
And yet we still see CNBC using that hackneyed shot of a "reporter" on the chit-strewn floor, looking up at the camera as bustling and hustling occurs around them.
I wonder if they've started bringing in their own slips of paper as props, and hiring extras ("must bring your own wing-tips") to create the activity.
I have no doubt that the entire scenario is a part of their elaborate scam to induce churn.
Yeah, works about the same - I don't get the trademark angle though. I agree that they have good cause to want to stop a news agency associating them with an activity they are not ultimately responsible for. But why take the trademark route for that? It's slightly weird, imo. I'd aim for libel, not for trademark infringement. But that might be specifics of the respective legal systems here.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
because the executives at Ford are band robbers.
Isn't band robbery what the RIAA organizations engage in?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Except it was an image of a couple guys standing in front of computers that happens to be on the NYSE floor. Take a look at the picture, does it look like a trademark to you? Would you even know it was a picture of the NYSE if it wasn't labeled right below as a picture of the NYSE?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Unfortunately the trademark has already been diluted because the trading floor image of the NYSE is already seen as a generic "stock trading" image. In fact, if they filed a lawsuit over this, I hope that trademark gets invalidated.
It seems just absurd to trademark the floor of the NYSE considering that it's been the generic "stock trading" image for decades.
While it is true that the NYSE can trademark the floor as you say, the problem is that they cannot selectively enforce trademark as they wish. I would bet that in the long history of floor there have been many published photographs taken of the floor without permission. If the NYSE did not pursue trademark violations in all those cases, they cannot pursue TPM under the principles of laches and estoppel.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Those things are all true, except the last (and only with a contrafactual assumption there). If it were the case that Coke did not, in fact, have high-fructose corn syrup in it, then they could complain about your picture of Coke. Just because it is a soft drink, and popular, doesn't give you the right to print a picture of the trademarked Coke logo when that has nothing to do with the story. (In the real world, Coke is full of HFCS, and it would be fine.)
In this case, the NYSE has nothing to do with the insider trading (apparently), and they don't want to be associated with the story, and that means they can use their trademark on their "image" to prevent it being tied to a story that isn't about them.
It's as if a story about pedophiles in our midst were illustrated with pictures of you playing with your kids. Sure, the story never claimed you were a pedophile; it never mentioned you at all. Yet the presence of your image there would cause an association you would certainly not like, and you would for damn sure use whatever legal basis you had to get your pictures off of there.
-DwS
Well the actual active floor of the NYSE these days is a computer data centre with lots of air conditioning tubes, cables, blinkenlights and so on. The real activity takes place on bank trading floors. They put their trades on their computers, and they go to the NYSE computer for processing.e
"Trolling idiot" works too. Tho I imagine this guy works for NYSE or their PR attack dogs.
NYSE is locked in a death spiral with the other Exchanges. Bad Things are happening to their revenue model. Cry me a river...
Oh, I actually wrote some fiction on the NYSE and high-freq trading. Totally fictitious all around (I've never even been there) but funny as heck IMO:
madscienceunlimited.com/fiction/theexchange.html
I guess I'll get a take-down order now lulz. But at least I didn't include a picture of the trading floor.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Here's the actual trademark image. from the USPTO. "The mark consists of a representation of an actual building interior, namely, a securities exchange trading floor."
Here's the image from the article. It's not an overview of the NYSE trading floor. It''s a single trading post on some exchange. (Of course, at this point, the NYSE is about the only exchange that still has a trading floor. Most of the trading actually happens in the racks of a colocation facility in New Jersey anyway.) If anybody has a right to complain, it's Barclays Capital, because their trading post is being shown in conjunction with a story about fraud, and the story doesn't mention Barclays Capital.
Gee, maybe I'm wrong. Let's go look it up real quick [wikipedia.org]...
Gee, maybe you could have read all of my posts where I even add a clarification that provides examples of true trademark dilution.
So there's this news article about the FBI and investment companies, and TPM threw NYSE's trademark on there because... um... why, exactly?
Because it's one of numerous stock photos of the NYSE that are used in stories about stock markets, investing, etc.
Well, maybe because it's a generic "stock trading" image that people will recognize, but it's not generic. It's a trademark. Putting the NYSE image on an unrelated article reinforces the idea that the NYSE is generic, and that certainly would "lessen its uniqueness".
So then where are all the other C&Ds to cover the numerous amount of other articles that use similar stock photos of the NYSE? Oh right, they don't exist. And since the NYSE has let all those other stories go, they've already diluted their trademark by lack of enforcement making their case even weaker.
Looks like dilution to me. Reading the actual C&D letter, the NYSE is not at all requesting censorship of the article. They just want the picture removed so they aren't directly associated with an insider trading investigation.
So what? That's not dilution. Dilution is an attempt to disassociate the product and the trademark whereas the article in question even makes sure to point out that the 'trademark', the trading floor, is of the NYSE, the product. Writing an article about the London Stock Exchange and using that picture with a caption that attempted to suggest that the NYSE 'trademark' in the picture is of the LSE would have some merit of dilution.
There are hundreds if not thousands of stock photos of the NYSE trading floor that are used in stories about investing, stock markets, etc in stories that aren't about the NYSE specifically. They've already made their 'trademark' generic through lack of enforcement.
So all the court convictions of insider traders on the NYSE does not point to the fact that insider trading happens there? Just because the NYSE itself is not doing insider trading does not mean that the NYSE is not related to it. That would be like banning the picture of a gun involved in a murder because the gun manufacturer did not pull the trigger and does not want to be associated with murder.
I am not related in any way to paedophilia therefore I could sue for slander. The NYSE, where insider trading does occur, is related to the story. If the NYSE feels slandered then sue for slander; don't try to hide behind an unrelated law.
The article in question isn't about the NYSE, though. It's about an FBI investigation. Attaching a NYSE trademark implies that NYSE is involved.
So what? Care to cite any statutory law that makes this remotely relevant? If that were true it would be a case for a defamation suit, not a trademark suit especially when the article in question is from November of last year which shows a clear lack of trademark enforcement. This is also ignoring the fact that the use of this supposedly 'trademarked' image has been used in generic articles about stock trading, investments, etc for years and years and years without the NYSE doing anything basically does nothing but show that they've allowed their 'trademark' to become generic and unenforceable. The NYSE is intentionally abusing trademark law.
Oh and if we are going to use wikipedia then maybe you should actually read what a trademark is?
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities.
A generic stock photo of the NYSE trading floor is not a "distintive sign or indicator" and thus does not fall under a trademark. You can't claim trademark on every single stock photo of the trading floor just as Subway Restaurants can not claim trademark over any sign that says "Subway" in it. The Subway trademark is a distinctive sign of the business.
By your logic I couldn't put a picture of people eating a McDonalds burger in an article about fast food, because it'd dilute its uniqueness. I'd say this more a case of smearing a trademark, like say if you in every article about car accidents put a Ford. Yes, Ford is a car but you'd smear the impression that Ford = unsafe cars all over the trademark. It's not diluting, it's not making it generic, it's making negative associations to your brand. Just as if you made an STD warning ad using a stock photo, that model may have signed a release form but probably not to anything and everything. I guess that's how the NYSE feels about the illustration.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This means you can't have a cleaning company called Microsoft Cleaners despite the fact that a cleaning company does not in any way compete with Microsoft's software business. The use of trademarks by newspapers is something else, as the trademark isn't being used in the name of a product, company or service.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
It does hold weight with trademark though. If you don't protect a trademark you can lose it. There is a difference between trademark and copyright, and the article is talking about trademark.
Those things are all true, except the last (and only with a contrafactual assumption there). If it were the case that Coke did not, in fact, have high-fructose corn syrup in it, then they could complain about your picture of Coke. Just because it is a soft drink, and popular, doesn't give you the right to print a picture of the trademarked Coke logo when that has nothing to do with the story. (In the real world, Coke is full of HFCS, and it would be fine.)
Says who? I assume you have case law and/or statutory law to back this up, right?
And as a final response to show you are totally full of shit. this is the actual registered trademark of the NYSE. The picture used in the article is not the same as the registered trademark thus the NYSE is even more full of shit. Once again, a trademark is a "distinctive sign or indicator of a business" and the picture in the article is not of their trademark.
Every individual on that trading floor is a market maker and uses their personal accounts to make markets.
It's quite likely that none of the people in a colored jacket is a market maker - they're basically blue collar workers perfoming the same mechanics that the NASDAQ does electronically. The folks on the trading floor don't make any (non-mechanical) decisions when it comes to trading; that would be their bosses.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Just because it's the NYSE doing this, it doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. It's a big, bad entity.
But what if the entity were an individual? An individual trying to assert their right regarding publication of their trademarked image (i.e., a picture of their face)?
Would you look at the argument any differently?
Not true when the NYSE encourages traders who exploit the market, and that exploitation magnifies crashes.
More like if Ford sold a car as "the best car to rob banks with" and then someone robs a bank with it. Yeah, that makes them at least partially liable.
Learn to love Alaska
We need fewer lawyers and more people doing real work, creative work, like taking photos. NYSE is a con-artist.
Yep. I watch the news a few times a week. I know well enough what the NYSE looks like.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
How about a simple concept called tarnishment? Also, just because this is the first C&D you've heard about, does not mean it's the first that's been sent. Similarly, if a newspaper asks to use the image, the NYSE might be very liberal in what they'll give permission for. The widespread use of an image does not mean it's lost its distinction, and even if NYSE had failed to protect its trademark completely, that's just one of many criteria for considering whether the trademark is still valid.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I like your Ford analogy better. The legal term is "tarnish", and you're right about it: If you put a McDonalds picture in an article about fast food's detrimental effects on health, you could get in trouble for it. You could avoid the trouble by using a loophole for newsworthy content, by simply adding a caption about how "McDonalds serves over 9000 burgers every day, making over 9000 people fatter." It certainly wouldn't make McDonalds executives happy to talk to your reporters, but you could probably avoid legal problems.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Libel means probably going through an expensive lawsuit to get anything fixed. A trademark issue means they send a cease & desist letter, and the responsible news agency either clarifies why the image is newsworthy or removes it. TPM instead felt it necessary to complain.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Wow. Three replies to a single comment. Either you have problems organizing your thoughts, or you love your jerking knee.
I find it amazing that your definition of "true" trademark dilution is different from every other definition, where associating a trademark with something undesirable is illegal. It's irrelevant that the picture was a "stock image", as there is no such legal status. What matters is that the picture is distinctly recognizable as the NYSE, even without the existence of any other logos.
One of your examples illustrates this well. You can go into any Subway restaurant and take a picture, and it will be recognizable as a Subway, even without logos. The employee uniforms, shape of the counter, posted signs, and even the color scheme all contribute to a recognizable image. Likewise, if you see a picture of any trading floor in the United States, it's almost always the NYSE. The fact that the picture doesn't blatantly say "NYSE" is irrelevant.
It also doesn't matter that the "stock" picture is a different angle, with different people, in different colors. In fact, that image you linked to isn't even the complete registered trademark. The registered mark "consists of a representation of an actual building interior, namely, a securities exchange trading floor." Again, since almost any picture you'll see in the United States of a trading floor is the NYSE, that's pretty distinctive. It's also pretty vague, and intentionally so. Trademarks are supposed to protect a brand from being diminished by an unscrupulous company damaging or hijacking their good reputation. A vague description of the mark can protect from a much wider range of alterations than an exact detail.
The legal system does not have a set of absolute criteria to sort out "right" and "wrong" behavior, no matter how much computer folks might wish for it. Sure, the NYSE may have missed a few uses of their trademark, or chose not to send a C&D for articles they liked, but that doesn't automatically invalidate the trademark. If this case were to ever reach a court, a judge might determine that now, (ten years after registration), folks are more likely to see images of trading floors other than NYSE, and call it a dead mark. It's also not a definite problem that there was a six-month delay in sending out the C&D. A judge might consider that a bit too long to care, or he might just assume the legal department was busy. The legal system is not run by computers. It's sad, but true.
Apparently, though, the legal system is full of the same shit I am.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Maybe. But that's thin. If I got that C&D under these circumstances, it would immediately return to sender with the note to shove it where the sun don't shine. I don't see how they could have a standing on the trademark issue.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Laches would only apply to the current case, and only if the delay was found to be unreasonable. Six months is pretty quick for a legal claim. Whether NYSE has sent C&D letters to others who used their trademark would only affect whether the trademark is genericized to the point of being invalid, but even then the enforcement is only one of several criteria considered.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The problem with trademarks is that you have to enforce them. The NYSE cannot selectively choose now to be the time to start enforcing it when then haven't in the past. Coca-Cola can't let some people copycat on their trademarks while suing others, for example. Coca-Cola might not be able to find everyone who infringed and that might explain their lack of action but that would not be the case for the NYSE.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The NYSE cannot selectively choose now to be the time to start enforcing it when then haven't in the past.
Yes, they can. The trademark holder may choose not to pursue uses which are inconsequential. It may choose to grant permission to use the trademark. It may just plain not care. As long as the general appearance is that the holder hasn't abandoned the mark, and the mark still identifies the holder, the trademark is still likely to be considered valid. If a court determines that the trademark is valid, the holder controls its use. Requiring absolute enforcement would place an undue burden on the holder, so it's not required.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Yes, they can. The trademark holder may choose not to pursue uses which are inconsequential. It may choose to grant permission to use the trademark. It may just plain not care. As long as the general appearance is that the holder hasn't abandoned the mark, and the mark still identifies the holder, the trademark is still likely to be considered valid. If a court determines that the trademark is valid, the holder controls its use. Requiring absolute enforcement would place an undue burden on the holder, so it's not required.
See Sawyer v Kellogg:
. . . in trade-mark cases that lack of diligence in suing deprives the complainant in equity of the tight either to an injunction or an account. . . A long lapse of time will not deprive the owner of a trade-mark of an injunction against an infringer, but a reasonable diligence is required of a complainant in asserting his rights . . .
Of course the plaintiff may explain to the court the reasons they did not pursue all individuals. The court will accept practical reasons. For example, Coca-Cola may not be able locate or know the true identity of the infringers of their trademark. What Coca-Cola cannot do is simply to let them exist. Most often, trademark infringing products are confiscated and destroyed by the holder. If Coca-Cola did not destroy the products, it could be seen as an endorsement of the practices.
If I was TPM, the first question I would ask is why NYSE did not pursue other newspapers that infringed on the NYSE's trademark for the last hundred years or so. The NYSE cannot claim they could not locate the infringers. At most, NYSE may claim that they had agreements with other newspapers. At which point I would ask to see the agreements. If they cannot produce the agreements, then the NYSE has no real case against TPM.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So there isn't a single other stock exchange that looks roughly the same? The overhead monitors would be a sensible design decision at any SE, so I don't see that being specific to the NYSE. Perhaps having the overhead monitors in a quad formation around some kind of pole? That seems pretty sensible to reduce the space that they take up and to allow viewing from all directions. I just don't see such a small area in the picture being terribly unique to the NYSE, nor do I really see that it has any bearing on Copyright for a stock photo to be used in conjunction with a story about the FBI investigating insider trading allegations at the NYSE.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?