Blue Cross / Blue Shield Says Study Pointing Out Failures Of Its Doctors... Violates Its Trademark
from the that's-not-how-tardemark-works dept
Don't mean to sound like a broken record, but the purpose of trademark is consumer protection from confusion. The idea is that someone shouldn't be able to sell you "Bob's Cola," while labeling it "Coca Cola," because that's a form of fraud on consumers. Tragically, over the last few decades, lawyers have been able to reposition trademark law not as a "consumer protection" law, but as "intellectual property." This leads trademark holders to increasingly pretend that trademark law grants them additional rights and abilities and to use trademark law in ways that simply are not granted under the law.For example, the Massachusetts Blue Cross/Blue Shield apparently thinks that you can't publish a study criticizing its doctors without permission thanks to trademark law. The company's VP of Communications contacted the authors of the study (which pointed out that BCBS doctors didn't always respond well to patients needing psychiatric care), telling them:
“We are VERY concerned about the use of BCBSMA’s name and brand in a published study without BCBSMA authorization. We’d like to talk with you about that.”You may be concerned, but shouldn't you be a bit more concerned about the results of the study that call into question the practices of your doctors? Because the use of the name is perfectly legal and in no way touches on trademark law. No moron in a hurry is going to have a "likelihood of confusion" here, thinking that this study was somehow a product of BCBSMA. And, of course, in trying to intimidate the study's authors, all BCBSMA has done is... draw a lot more attention to the study and the reported failings of the organization.
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Filed Under: doctors, study, trademark
Companies: blue cross blue shield
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The mind boggling part is how consistently they drill right through rock bottom.
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Once we've passed nickel/iron inner core level, what's below that?
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I've never seen such an appropriate typo in a while.
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I've never seen such an appropriate typo in a while.
Now I feel like I have to leave it in place.
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2- Blue Cross/Blue Shield tries to use Trademark law to shut down that study;
3- Q.E.D.
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2- Blue Cross/Blue Shield tries to use Trademark law to shut down that study;
3- Streisand Effect. Ppl start avoiding BC/BS;
4- ????
5- Profit! Oh wait....
Fixed.
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2- Blue Cross/Blue Shield tries to use Trademark law to shut down that study;
3- Streisand Effect. Ppl start avoiding BC/BS;
4- Start a different insurance company
5- Profit!
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"Coca-Cola" is a registered trademark of the "COCA-COLA COMPANY",
Now, a physical good can be trademarked and protected against anyone else so labeling some competing goods, but with Blue Cross / Blue Shield, their product is... organizing services, I suppose -- to make a pun since it's medical. Anyway, my point is that even allowing this corporation a trademark AT ALL when they've no product of physical goods is a primary mistake that should be undone.
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Re: "Coca-Cola" is a registered trademark of the "COCA-COLA COMPANY",
Would've gotten more, but you didn't bash Mike this time.
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Re: "Coca-Cola" is a registered trademark of the "COCA-COLA COMPANY",
Take for instance, Listerine. Their product is mouth wash, their trademark is the name "Listerine". They sell the formula for their product to the stores so that stores can make cheaper store brand knock-offs. The store's product is basically the same thing, maybe a few small changes, but they can never call it Listerine, because Listerine is what is trademarked, not the product itself which they can produce all they want once said formula is purchased.
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Re: Re: "Coca-Cola" is a registered trademark of the "COCA-COLA COMPANY",
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Re: "Coca-Cola" is a registered trademark of the "COCA-COLA COMPANY",
On top of that, trademark protects against the use in commerce of the mark by another. Referring to Blue Cross doctors in a study is not using the term in commerce. This is so even if the study is being sold.
The reason is that the 'use in commerce' requirement is a use wherein the trademark is being used to identify a good or service being offered for sale. In the study example provided here, Blue Cross is not being used to identify a good or service being offered for sale, but rather it is being used to identify doctors that are part of the Blue Cross network.
I've touched on various aspects of trademark law on my blog through various posts in the Trademark tag here:
http://www.lextechnologiae.com/tag/trademark-2/
Or the Trademark category here:
http://www.lextechnologiae.com/category/trademark/
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the coca-cola trademark is on the name so i cant put brown sugar in water and sell it as coke. If i actually recreated the recipe of coke and sold it as something else that wouldn't be a trademark issue that would be a patent or copyright issue.
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Coca Cola? WTF? WTF? WTF?
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Kind of like drug company studies...
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- Vladimir, I have noticed that you have changed Russian anthem, do you have any plans to change the flag as well - return to the previous purely red flag? If you would
put our Coca-Cola trademark in a corner, we would solve all your problems with pensions, salaries of officials for couple years ahead...
Vladimir puts the call on hold and asks his colleague:
- Hey, when does our contract with Aqua Fresh end?
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