My Life. My Card. My Intellectual Property Battle.
from the the-world-we-live-in dept
Barely a day goes by when we don't hear of yet another story about some sort of intellectual property claim being asserted where it doesn't belong. It's a function of a current culture where people are being incorrectly taught that every idea, every concept, every word and every sound should be protected and "owned" despite the fact that these things, by their very nature, are infinite and can be freely shared at no cost to anyone. The latest such case involves a guy who apparently pitched the slogan "My Card. My Life" to American Express a while back. Soon afterwards, entirely independently, AmEx's own ad agency pitched the same slogan, which is now being used. After discovering that the other guy was trying to trademark (we assume, even though the article claims "patent") the phrase, AmEx sued to get a declaratory judgment that its use of the phrase did not infringe. Thankfully, a judge has agreed that no infringement occurred. Yet, in this age, where we're being incorrectly bombarded with the message that ideas can be owned and protected, it's no surprise that American Express would worry about such a thing.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: intellectual property, ownership, slogan
Companies: american express
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YEAH RIGHT!!!!! So they say -
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It's also not surprising they used it. A while back slogans weren't supposed to be that simplistic, now all of them are. So re-pitch the same idea independently at a different time and it might be used.
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About this being something they were bound to come up with, that is what people say about any good idea... in hindsight.
My guess is, they heard his pitch, thought "Why didn't we think of that, no way we are going to pay a lot of money for it" and decided to have their regular agency 'pitch' the slogan at a standard fee. Hard to prove though.
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You can't tell me none of the other card companies has ever thought of this and had an idea pitched by one of the marketing teams?
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An idea is not better if it contains more words.
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I have to admit a touch of disgust in comparing SHAKESPEARE to an American Express slogan.
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The ignorance of trademark laws is palpable here
The problem that tripped up this guy, however, is that he has never used the mark in connection with any goods or services. One cannot own a trademark unless one uses said trademark.
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You have to wonder
There is presentation and there is Presentation.
If the pitch was really just the 4 four words then Amex is on shaky ground here. If they didn't like it when he presented it, I think it is their responsibility to disclose why they liked it the second time they heard it.
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Re: You have to wonder
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Hard to prove
Too bad, you got burned on this one. Serves you right for trusting the Big Company. This is American Express, a credit card company. Like the Fake Bill Gates said on The Simpsons episode. "I didn't get to be the world's richest man by buying people out." Me, I'd have had a fool-proof solution to these kinds of shenanigans.
Have "My Life, My Card" printed on your business card. In fact, you can make it "My Life, My Card, My Trademark" just to drive the point home. Naturally, he can't use that exact phrase, but anyone presented with that card would have remembered it.
I'm skeptical of the ability of committees' abilities to come up with something so simple. Then again, I'm skeptical of committee abilities generally. I would expect the following from American Express corporate: "The Card that Lets You Do Anything, Anytime, Anywhere." Just rolls off the tongue, eh? Design-by-committee tends to produce abominations like Windows Vista.
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AmEx is still dealing with a case right now.
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2006/09/my_card_my_work.html
http://www.exclusiverights. net/200628
This is something that AmEx has been dealing with for some time now. This guy (Okeefe) seems to have a strong case. Who knows.
anyways that's my .02cents
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biochemistry
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Science.go
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