Lawyers Starting To Understand The Pointlessness Of Over Aggressive Trademark Enforcement

from the let-it-go... dept

Thu, Jan 18th 2007 3:10pm — Mike Masnick

For years, lawyers have been overreacting to the "threat" of online trademarks. While trademark law does require that you police the trademark, or risk losing it, that doesn't mean you need to go after every use of the market. Trademark, unlike copyrights and patents, don't give you as much control -- and are merely designed as a method of consumer protection against confusion of the authenticity of a product. However, it's become quite common for lawyers to go after anyone and everyone who use their trademark, even if it's not in any way confusing of damaging. Where it gets particularly bad is where the lawyers step in and start shutting down fan sites who were only helping to promote the brand. However, the good news is that a few lawyers may finally be coming to terms with all of this. Whether by simply being worn down by the sheer volume of use of the mark, or simply by finally realizing that much of the use helps promote the brand, some lawyers are recognizing that going after every use of a trademark on the web just doesn't make sense. In fact, some of the lawyers even seem to be grasping the Streisand Effect -- that trying to take something offline is likely to get it even more attention. Now if we could only get more lawyers to recognize a moron in a hurry, we might be getting somewhere.

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7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2007 @ 3:29pm

RedHat enforces it, it's all they have to distingu
I'd hardley say it's pointless. Some things are worth defending. I'd like to see some more graphics art satire adds.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2007 @ 4:08pm

first
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EdB, 18 Jan 2007 @ 4:12pm

Re:
You certainly are the first to say 'first', but you're not the first to say something.
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DM, 18 Jan 2007 @ 4:59pm

Re:
Normally, when some idiot posts a "first" comment which isn't actually the first, you expect to see only a minute or so difference in the timing.

However, you appear to be a particularly rare breed of idiot. Not only is your "first" post not the first, but you managed to miss it by almost thirty minutes!
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zcat, 18 Jan 2007 @ 8:40pm

s/almost/morethan/

(4:08 - 3:29) is about 39 minutes.

That's almost 40 minutes!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2007 @ 8:53pm

Doesn't give, not don't give
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This is silly, 22 Jan 2007 @ 9:48pm

Plain silly. Lguna Beach silly !!!
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