It was bad enough when Monster cable sued anyone who used the word “monster” anywhere in their company, and when Monster energy drink tried to get Vermonster for trademark infringement.
Now Kleenex has trademarked the phrase “Let it out”. WTF? 
:dubious: :rolleyes:
Heh, Disney with the 100 year extension on Mickey Mouse took it pretty far.
At least Mickey is actually the product of someone’s creativity.
Hey Kleenex - did you know that there are over 3,000 books in Google Books with the phrase “let it out”? Plus at least two songs with that title?
There are lots of “cola” drinks, but if you tried to market “Coco Cola”, I think it would only take a megasecond for some attorneys in Atlanta to come swarming down on you.
The point is, that the makers of “Coco Cola” would intentionally be trying to siphon off customers of Coca Cola by confusing them.
Regarding Monster - OK, that might seem silly, but we all know Monster.com right? They are an online job hunting/marketing business. If I start a new website called Monsters.com and only sell masks for Halloween, there is no case - two different types of business and no chance of confusing a customer.
However, if I start a job seeking website called Munster or Monstor or Monstar - well, you could make a good case that I was trying to use the name to confuse people into thinking I was Monster.com and they would easily be able to shut down that new website.
Same thing goes for taglines like “Let it out!”
As long as that is a tag for a facial tissue product, they could sue another facial tissue product for using some variation of the tag line, trying to confuse the general public into thinking they were the same product.
But if you had a line of elastic belts and used the phrase, “Let it out!”, there would be no confusion as they are two different products.
It does get tricky with some catch phrases - my guess is “You deserve a break today…” from McDonalds might be pretty rock solid after all these years and a case could be made that any use of that phrase whatsoever, by any company, would make people think that product had something to do with McDonald’s corporation - even if it was a brake repair shop using "You deserve a brake today… This is when things go to trial. In this case, I think McDonalds would win, as it would be fairly easy to prove the catch phrase is easily identified as McDonalds’ by the general public.
Trademark attorneys do lots of work when registering names and logos and tag lines - they have to research and be certain they are not infringing on a current mark. They also have to work hard to keep their mark from being copied or used by other companies. There was an entire department in the film studio where I worked that did nothing but register trademarks, and stop people from trying to use their trademarks.
One job that was interesting - if a script came along, they would give it to a few attorneys who would pour over every name in the script; you had to be careful not to use some company name or logo that is actually a real company or similar logo. You had to make certain that your fictitious, lead character name of Senator Martin McAllen was not the real name of a Senator in some state. There were occasional slip ups and people would sue the film studio if they thought their name/company was being used. Rarely would they win, but if you had an “evil doctor” named Dr. Xacto in Pasadena in the film, you had better be damned sure there isn’t coincidentally really a Dr. Xacto in Pasadena or you’re screwed.
There’s a certain irony in how wide of the mark Coca Cola has drifted since 1886. Coca Cola: No coca, no cola.
If you’re talking about the legislation passed by Congress some years back, i believe that related to copyright protection, not to trademark issues. The two things are quite different.
DMark, you might be right about how the system is supposed to work, but it gets problematic when a company with deep pockets decides to go after anyone who uses the name at all. The Monster cable company is notorious for suing anyone who uses the term “monster” in their product name, no matter how far removed their product is from audio-visual cables. Even if the objects of these suits end up winning, it costs them money and hassle and stress to fight these claims. One recent example was when they went after a company called Monster MiniGolf.
If companies were as reasonable as that, I would have no problem; however:
Vermonster was a well-established local beer in Vermont before Monster enegy drink existed; furthermore, there is no way you could confuse the two logos.
Then there is Monster Cable, which has, per Wikipedia, sued the following for trademark infringement:
[ul]
[li]Snow Monsters (a kid’s skiing group)[/li][li]MonsterVintage, small used clothing store[/li][li]Monsters, Inc., an animated feature film[/li][li]Monster Garage, a television series[/li][li]Monsters of the Midway, a nickname of the Chicago Bears football team[/li][li]Fenway Park’s Monster seats[/li][li]Monster.com employment website[/li][li]Monster Mini Golf[/li][li]Monster Balls Paintballs manufactured by JT Sports[/li][li]Monster Transmission[/li][/ul]
I agree that companies shouldn’t try to mimic other companies to deceive customers, but companies also shouldn’t be able to harass other companies legitimate existing companies.
I’m with you 100%, but this is probably a case of the drink company being overzealous about not letting their brand name become genericized. Not that that would realistically happen to them anyway.
Someone who is dead, and doesn’t own it anymore yes.
Disney is one of the biggest companies in the world. As soon as Mickey was created, it wasn’t about the person who created it, but the company’s use and ownership. You have to make an allowance for the creation of a symbolic, instantly recognisable, and enduring trademark icon.
It wouldn’t bother me so much if Mickey Mouse were a trademark. But it’s still under copyright.
And, really, it isn’t that I really care about to use Mickey in public domain works. But it has delayed a lot of other stuff from becoming public domain, as no one can play favorites.
I think they should’ve designed the system where it couldn’t be applied retroactively, so the businesses couldn’t try to change the law for their own benefit.
Anyone who has spent some time in the iPhone community should be familiar with the Edge Games saga (and its followup). There’s far too much insanity and douchebagginess to put in a nutshell, but suffice it to say, Tim Langdell has been on a lawsuit rampage for years, suiting anyone and everyone who dares use the word “edge” in any fashion, in any industry – and the sad part is, he’s managed to settle lots of them out of court. As in, he’s gotten other companies to agree, even when his claims were ridiculous and would have been tossed.
Adding 20 years to the copyright expiry was fucking retarded, and nothing more than spineless legislative caving to the interests of big business. Possibly one of the worst, most corrupt decisions taken by Congress in recent memory. And that’s quite an achievement.
No wonder their wires cost so damn much. They’re paying for an army of full-time lawyers.
Nah. They’re just trying to convince everyone that their mediocre hardware is actually worth the money. They’re kinda like Pear Cable, only not as expensive and a lot more litigious. I avoid Monster at every opportunity except for a series of Monster power bars I have because they were being cleared out 2 for $15 a few years back.
I started a threadfive and a half years ago about the fact that the AMC Theater chain had trademarked the phrase “Silence is Golden.” As I said then,
Cantakerist offered a thoughtful and plausible explanation of their thinking, if you’re interested.
But I still think it’s a rather stupid case of trademarking.
Just the other day, a company called SparkFun Electronics, who sell kits and parts for hobbyists, received a cease-and-desist letter from SPARC International, who make (dare I say it?) monster servers for large organizations. SparkFun posted the letter here with a good discussion of the issues.
Too bad there are people out there who like to be bullies.
Meh
Trademark law is not unfair, at a grass roots level. If Monster Cable® has a valid claim of trademark infringement against a competitor then they will usually prevail, if not, then they won’t.
Stripping away all the filigree, trademark law is there for one reason - to stop companies from passing off their products or services as someone elses, and thereby protecting consumers who might otherwise buy a product or service believing it was from a different source.
Trademarks are an indicia of source.
Registering a trademark is just the first step and there is very little quality control as to who is allowed to register a trademark (generally speaking, on a world-wide basis).
But if you want to enforce your trademark against alleged infringers, then you are in a whole different ballpark.
That’s cankerist by the way. 
I haven’t used that username since SDMB went to a pay system. I know that there is a rule against having two usernames, and I was once directed to tubadiva? to have it resolved, but for the life of me I couldn’t find tubadiva at the time.