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'The Hobbit' Pub Threatened With Lawsuit
An anonymous reader writes "'The Hobbit,' a small pub in Southampton, England, has been threatened with a lawsuit by lawyers representing the Saul Zaentz Company in California. The pub, which has traded under the name for the last 20 years without incident, now faces closure if it does not change its name. It's yet another example of big business throwing its weight around to get its way. The pub's landlady said simply, 'I can't fight Hollywood.'"
I'd imagine most of their 20 years went by just fine because they weren't using movie stills in their advertising and promotional material on their public website..
http://www.thehobbitpub.co.uk/
Not idiots. Not at all. Greedy is what they are.
The problem is more complicated than that. Companies that don't pursue any infringement they find out about vigorously often end up losing their trademark. This leads to these silly types of cases where the company doesn't really care that some small pub somewhere is using its trademark but if they don't come down hard on them the fact that they knew about it and didn't vigorously defend their trademark could cause them to lose a trademark decision against someone they do care about. Don't blame the company, blame the law that forces companies to act this way or risk losing their trademarks.