There Can Be Only One New Finland?

from the uusi-suomi dept

Reader Mimu Bunnylin points us to an interesting "trademark" battle coming out of Finland, where the Green political party kicked off their latest political campaign with a new slogan: "New Finland" (apparently Uusi Suomi in Finnish). Seems pretty generic, right? Well, apparently for a long time there was a newspaper in Finland that went by that name, and while it went out of business in 1991, in 2007 it was revived as an online only publication. While the editor of that publication didn't see anything wrong with the Green Party slogan, the publisher apparently went ballistic (Google translation from the original Finnish). He called (a different) Finnish newspaper from his vacation to complain about what the Green Party had done:
"This is intolerable, damn it! It is shocking that the Greens think they can demean the name of New Finland without contacting me!"
According to Bunnylin, the publisher also said:
"If due reparations are not agreed on, Green voters can vote for the Pirate Party, who think no one should pay for using other people's rights."
Of course, it seems that's what it really comes down to: "due reparations." Perhaps the publisher saw an opportunity to try to get some cash out of this. However, it does raise questions about whether or not such a generic and descriptive phrase like "New Finland" can really be trademarked in the first place.
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Filed Under: finland, green party, new finland, trademark


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  • icon
    Chuck (profile), 6 Dec 2010 @ 9:44pm

    Swipe?

    Unless I'm really mistaken, the publisher misstates Pirate Party's platform in trying to cause his argument. Do I sense a libel case? I mean, he's talking about infringing on rights, which I don't consider being paid for everything you come up with one.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Tor (profile), 6 Dec 2010 @ 11:39pm

      Re: Swipe?

      As far as I can see the Finnish Pirate Party does not have trademark reform on its agenda, so pretending that they do indeed seems to be a misrepresentation of their politics. I seriously doubt that the statement in this case is libelous however. Normally there is an extra wide margin of tolerance in the context of political speech.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Darryl, 6 Dec 2010 @ 10:23pm

    this is news because ?

    slow news day ??

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Darryl, 6 Dec 2010 @ 10:25pm

    ???

    There Can Be Only One New Finland?

    Is that a question or a statement ?,

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 7 Dec 2010 @ 5:14am

      Re: ???

      The trollingest, contradictory, illogical commenter can only be Darryl ?,

      Imagine that you are not a robot and put some inflection into the sentence. Then it may make sense.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2010 @ 8:22am

      Re: ???

      Yes. There can only be one, like in that foreign movie where there could only be one, and in the end there is only one dude left because that was the point.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    samworm (profile), 6 Dec 2010 @ 11:26pm

    Sit back and sing along

    Lovely Finland. Quite a long way from Cairo...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGWqtwhS2KY

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Hell Synkee, 16 Dec 2010 @ 1:56pm

    Finnish it now

    No Uusi Suomi?
    How about So Sumi?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Nate Dunham, 6 Jun 2012 @ 6:38am

    Foreign exchange trading is not similar to other careers. It's all based on effectiveness, and the most effective traders find that their work scales incredibly, bringing in income for merit, rather than time input. The best mt4 broker will teach you how to do that.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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