First, a story from the
Washington Post:
Last week, the U.S. Olympic Committee sent a cease-and-desist letter
to a bunch of knitters who had found a creative way to get together and
watch the Olympics. While copyright infringement notices happen all the
time, this one seemed a particularly far-fetched target for the USOC’s
wrath.
The knitters — and crocheters, spinners and other fiber enthusiasts — are members of a social-networking site called Ravelry, which has been a haven for fiber artists since 2007: It’s a bulletin board, marketplace and discussion forum rolled into one.
In
2008, Ravelry members launched the Ravelympics, a tongue-in-cheek event
that has continued every two years since, in which crafters set
themselves specific goals, start their projects during the Opening
Ceremonies of the Olympic Games and have to have them finished by the
end of the Closing Ceremonies.
Not any more — at least not under that name.
“We
believe using the name ‘Ravelympics’ for a competition that involves an
afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others,
tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games,” said the
USOC’s letter, which Ravelry’s founder, Casey Forbes, posted on the site
on June 20. “In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest
athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.”
You can read the rest of that story at the Washington Post. I found a related story this week at the
StarTribune:
[Amy] Brooks, of Rochester, sells handcrafted soaps that are designed to
reduce skin irritation to cancer patients as they go through therapy. A
cancer survivor herself, Brooks has been selling soap under the name
Bubbles by Brooks for 10 years...
Brooks is the subject of a trademark objection by Brooks Brothers, the
giant Connecticut-based clothier which also has a line of fragrances and
self-described "cleansing products." Brooks Brothers wants Bubbles by
Brooks to withdraw its trademark application with the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office or face "potentially costly litigation."..
In its letter to Brooks demanding that she withdraw her trademark
application, attorneys for Brooks Brothers said, "Though 'Brooks' may be
your surname, it does not give you the right to infringe on the Brooks
Brothers trademark or otherwise compete with Brooks Brothers."
In an interview, Brooks told the Star Tribune: "I've grown every year
for the last 10 years by word of mouth. I could change my [company's]
name, but then there's the domino effect. I have custom printed boxes,
website domains. What does that affect? Absolutely everything."..
Brooks said her attorneys told her it would cost $200,000 to fight Brooks Brothers' opposition to her trademark request.
"I don't have that," Brooks said. "It's wrong what they're doing."
This kind of stuff always makes my blood boil, for it's stupidity and heavy-handeness. Never thought of calling it bullying before, but you are right.
ReplyDelete"First we kill the lawyers..."
ReplyDeleteWe aren't the cause of litigation. And we also provide representation to the other side. And many of us provide valuable services to the community either through pro bono work or careers dedicated to public service. We are necessary because without us and the court system you would be reduced to once again physically fighting over differences. Our experience and education is invaluable to someone needing rights defended.
DeleteSo please, spare me the lawyer-blame.
You're completely dead to irony and humour too, huh?
DeleteOh, I don't think the anonymous is blaming just the lawyers... just putting them at the front of the line... Your argument is that we need lawyers to protect us from other kinds of lawyers.
DeletePerhaps if there were more torches and pitchforks protecting society, the costs of white collar crime would finally outweigh the risks.
Just so you know, not all knitters are ready to undertake mayhem with their #2 needles - the Yarn Harlot addresses this issue in a very calm and reasoned way in her blog post:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2012/06/21/now_that_you_ask.html
No sarcasm there - she really does present the Olympic committee's side, and I have to say it actually makes a bit of sense to me now. I don't agree 100%. but I'm about 95% there.
Thanks for posting this, Weaving One. This gave me some things to think about I hadn't considered.
DeleteI'm not a lawyer, so maybe someone else can answer this. If you own a trademark, are you bound to protect it all the time? Like, if I let some uses of it slip, does that mean I can't go after other infractions?
That's the argument, yes. Any uses you know of, but don't object to, could establish past practice and allow other people to use your trademark.
DeletePart of the trademark law is that the trademark holder must defend their trademark. If they do not, then they risk having their trademark rescinded. If a trademark holder doesn't defend their trademark against someone and allows them to use a similar word or mark to denote the other person's product, then the law rules that the trademark holder has willfully allowed their trademark to be no longer protected and thereby the trademark is removed.
ReplyDeleteThis is why you hear so often about these "David vs. Goliath" trademark lawsuits. If the corporations didn't, then they would lose their trademark and everyone could use it. Imagine if Coca-Cola or McDonald's lost their trademarks. Then you wouldn't know if you were buying a substandard soft drink that tasted like bear bile or if that McDonalds you just pulled into changed their name last week from Harry's Horseburgers.
In the case of Amy Brooks, I'd hate to say it, but she is clearly in violation. Brooks Brothers has been a name brand for many years. In another notable case, Dolby Laboratories, inventors of the Dolby sound system for improving sound from recorded music, sued the musician Thomas Dolby for trademark violation and they lost. What it boiled down to was Thomas Dolby entered the court and brought his birth certificate. Thomas Dolby was born in 1958. Dolby Laboratories was founded in 1965. The court ruled in favor of T. Dolby as he was born first. The actual reason was that T. Dolby was a musician who created music and sound, not a technician who was signal processing the sound. Therefore, he was not in a competitive industry against Dolby Labs. In Amy Brooks' case, she is creating a product that directly competes with a product line created by Brooks Brothers, to wit: a scented soap.
If Amy claims her soap is medicinal (here comes the FDA!) and B.B. doesn't make a medicinal soap, then it is possible she could win the case. Then B.B. could go to the Trademark office and show they protected their trademark, and Amy could continue her Bubbles By Brooks line. If Amy loses, she'll just have to come up with a new name for her product. She states her business grew by word of mouth, so it won't be too much effort for her to get the word out. New customers will still be told by friends about the new product and will still contact Amy in the usual manner.
Last, Amy cannot claim ignorance, no more than anyone could claim that they didn't know it was against the law to bludgeon someone to death for not using their turn signal when making a turn.
Yes, my explanations above have been simplified to serve as easy-to-understand examples. Am I a lawyer? No. I am a writer, and so I have to deal with this stuff in realtime. How many times, when you have to blow your nose, do you ask, "Do you have a box of kleenex I can use?" Kleenex® is a registered brand trademark. I can't just have a character in one of my stories sneeze and reach for a kleenex. I have to have the character reach for a Kleenex® or a tissue.
What I object to is the fact that nowadays, many lawyers now are turning to the tactic of, "Scare them into settling." They send an incredibly threatening letter, pointing out how just defending themselves will make the defendant go bankrupt so they may as well acquiesce and not take it to court. If I got a letter like that, I'd take it to court, have it declared harassment, and go for treble damages for the legal fees. (Of course, that's assuming that I truly didn't violate their trademark.)
Oops. I need to make a correction, I accidentally deleted a bit about Dolby when moving a paragraph.
DeleteTo clarify, the popular story was Thomas Dolby went to court with his birth certificate. His birth name is Thomas Robertson, "Dolby" was his nickname. The real story is as stated above, that T. Dolby didn't make electronic sound processing equipment and it was on that basis that the case was settled.
Wikipedia has a decent summary (uncited) here: Thomas Dolby Stage Name.
Thanks for explaining it in the way you did William.
DeleteSpeaking as a lawyer - albeit based in the UK and not in the US - I don't see that the name 'Brooks' infringes on the name 'Brooks Brothers'. Are they going to say that using the word 'Brothers' on its own is a similar infringement? Unless she is using an infringing get-up as well, this is just trade-mark trolling.
ReplyDeleteMacdonalds tried to pursue a fish-and-chip shop in the Midlands (IIRC) called 'MacDonalds' after the man who owns it. They alleged that it was in the fast food business and was therefore infringing. They got short shrift, as I recall. Currently a US movie company with rights to the Hobbit name is trying to take action against a pub in Hampshire which has been using the name 'Hobbit' for decades. I think they will probably lose precisely because until it became a movie nobody had bothered to protect the name.
I highly recommend that everyone listen to this recent episode of This American Life.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack
It demonstrates how out of control our patent system is.
I highly recommend that everyone listen to every episode of This American Life. Best program on the radio.
DeleteIn France there has recently been a similar case, with a primary school teacher called Mrs. Figaro being threatened of legal action by the magaine _Madame Figaro_ for blogging under her own name: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9362585/Madame-Figaro-the-English-teacher-launches-campaign-against-French-magazine.html
ReplyDeleteBack in 2005, there also had been the case of a seamstress renamed Milka who dared have a website: http://www.circlingthedrain.com/2005/03/15/kraft-steamrolls-seamstress/
In both cases, the corporations got what they wanted.