Re: Midgard

From: Rodger <rodger@speakUNeasy.net>

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:34:15 +0000

madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral) wrote in
news:20040225131519.20488.00000349@mb-m28.aol.com:

>>>The above exchange has me wondering what's to stop someone from
>>>starting up
> a sport apparel business and calling it Nike?
> Anyone in the know? Gladly accepting educated guesses even.<<
>
> The name "Nike" is a registered trademark and has probably been
> registered in every country which offers registration.
>

<<snip>>
>In this instance, Nike *could* attempt to say that the other company were
>trading on their copyrighted trademarks by making very similar marks.
>This, however, would be expensive and difficult to prove, and even if they
>did, the company doing it may be manufacturing in a country where
>trademark laws are different, or non-existant.

>Nike would then have to pursue individual distributors, sueing them for
>selling infringing shoes in countries where their trademarks were
>respected.  This is an even more difficult legal position to pursue.

> Most often, the big companies just dont even try.  Which is why most
> brand names have "knock off" versions.  Of course, there's no reason
> to assume that a "knock off" would not be as good or better than the
> original.  Traditionally, in the clothing industry, knock offs are
> done 'on the cheap' but there are other industries where this is not
> the case.
>
> Steve T.
>

This is a blood-sport in the US - note McDonalds Inc issuing a cease and
desist order on a restaurant in Scotland run by someone actually in the
Clan McDonald family, and Microsoft suing Mike Rowe for his
mikerowesoft.com.  I just remembered that Nike is a word in (Portuguese??)
and Nike sued a company there that was using the name.

In fact there may be an RPG in there if you borrow some ideas from a '50s
sf novel "Gladiator at Law" by Frederik Pohl, CM Kornbluth.

Rodger

remove caps to reply

References

Re: Midgard
Hugh Bayer <hugh@bigspider.net>
Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:29:45 +0000
Re: Midgard
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:15:19 +0000