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In lugnet.market.theory, Will Middelaer writes:
> In lugnet.market.theory, Matthew Gerber writes:
> > (Useful summary of trademark law and request for a halt of “ball-
> > busting” excised.)
Sounds painful!
<snip the items I agree with...especially usage>
> Certainly respect and common courtesy should not be discounted here. It is
> polite to try to get peoples’ names correct, and also to get the names of
> their businesses correctly as well.
Hear-hear!
> However, Leticia Baldridge herself would be the first one to point out that
> anyone going around publicly offering unsolicited advice on correcting
> manners is likely not living a genteel life himself, having shown coarseness
> in the correcting of others in a public setting. (ED- FWIW, I don’t consider
> trying to correct points of law to be discourteous behavior. After all, IAAL. )
But then Letty doesn't think you should use your cell phone in public...I
suppose I should only use it in private at home (where I'm next to my
regular phone)? Doesn't that kinda' defeat the purpose of the dang things in
the first place? Maybe she needs to go back to placing the forks on the
proper side of the plate...
And the attempt to seperate the two issues, into more appropriate forums, if
not to private channels, has been undertaken. That was a major issue unto
itself: the appropriateness of taking a thread and turning it into a
personal attack, even leaving it under the original heading which made it
seriously off-topic...say, maybe Letty could come and offer some LUGNET
posting and politeness pointers? Think she'd be up for it? 8?)
> Those who would hold otherwise should check their premises. What is it that
> they truly fear? The loss of their mark, or the loss of something that they
> hold more precious than any commercial benefit that they might derive from
> their trademark?
<snip>
Loss of identity is directly related to loss of trademark. Ask anyone going
to "Kinko's" to make "Xeroxes" if they are truly visiting their local
Kinko's branch to make photocopies on Xerox machines, or if they are going
to Local Copies 'n' Stuff to make photocopies on a Konica machine...you'd be
surprised at the answer.
> Closing thought experiment:
>
> What if bricksmith fell into general use to describe anyone who builds great
> things our of our favorite bricks, akin to the way wordsmith describes an
> author of great quality? Would such an action be objectionable, or more
> importantly actionable? Can a person (natural or otherwise) or persons
> claim ownership of a word to the exclusion of all non-attributed
> use/uses/users? Jabberwocky!
But would such use cause a decline in the marketability of the Guild of
Bricksmith's name, in the same community? Yes. It could be assumed that
anyone being called/calling themselves "bricksmith" was associated with the
group, and that would be false. Is that actionable? To an extent. I would
hope that it would be resolved privately, community member to community
member, but if there was a serious monetary loss, GoB would be within their
rights to take legal action, no?
BTW, Lewis Carol would like a word with you in private...something about
misuse of a copyrighted character name? 8?D
<snip>
> 2)I note in passing my amusement that you copied Cornell's summary of
> trademark law without bothering to designate that Cornell holds the
> copyright in the material you copied.
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/comments/credits.html
Hee-hee...but re-enforces my entire point, and yours as snipped above
top...I'm with you on the everyday use vs. commercial use issue, and I don't
go out of my way to honor every trademark I use in passinng or conversation,
but as a graphic designer, I DO know proper use in a commercial setting, and
completely understand Larry's one time assertation of the GoB mark (Heck,
you'll notice that even I didn't honor the GoB name in all of this, there
was no real need).
Thanks for the great post, though...I think it really wraps up the issue well.
Matt
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