The Laws of the IP's

Hello and welcome to entry number two!

Today's blog is about IP laws and trademarks.

 

We began our workshop with a presentation from Patent Attorneys Ross Clarke and Ian Drew, both from Davies Collison Cave, Australia's leading patent and trademark attorney firm. This was speedy and impressive, and filled with important details on the what and the how of patenting and trademarking Intellectual Property.

Beginning with Trademarks (TM's) - Defined by the TM's Act in 1995 as being signs used to distinguish  goods or services in trade, including words, letters, name packaging, shape color, etc, and anything else they come up with! TM's help to gain a competitive advantage from free riders, and protect consumers from being mislead. Protecting TM's is about protecting the goodwill of your company, which in this case of business refers to the  intangible asset on the balance sheet because it is not a physical asset like buildings or equipment (or doughnuts). Goodwill also typically reflects the value of assets like brand names, good customer and employee relations, and patents or propriety tech.  


While registering TM's can be a pricey but the benefits are great and include, providing the owner with exclusive rights to the mark, defense to infringement of other registrations, notification function; arks are on the public record), trade-able and license-able propriety right, TM's block third party applications, registered TM's can be traded with or without business goodwill, they are a basis for customs seizure provisions, and they help to stop counterfeit goods (as listed by R Clarke & I Drew, 26 March).

The following is a somewhat ironic example of a company's fight regarding the goodwill of their ..empire;
In the year 2000Playboy enterprises tried to sue search engines Excite and Netscape for using pornographic banner advertisements when the words "Playmate" and "Playboy", both registered TM's of Playboy enterprises, were used in a search. Playboy Enterprises felt that the pornography "diluted" the quality of the Playboy name, and also felt negatively regarding the profit Excite was earning form its TM's.
In this particular case, Playboy claimed infringement eventhough it's TM was not used and for this reason the court case was dismissed. In addition to this the case was dismissed because the judge felt that the words playmate and playboy belonged not only to Playboy enterprises but were also commonly used words in the English language.
The article further discusses that" if Playboy enterprises had of won their case, this could have lead to more intrusive lawyering on the internet".
for something that relies so heavily on advertising, this would be problematic.

Paris Hilton TM'd her catch phrase "That's Hot", and in 2007 when Hallmark used it on a card with an image resembling the image of the Hilton Heiress she successfully sued them. This is a perfect example of the benefits of Trade Marking Intellectual Property.

 Just for laughs, here are 15 of the most ridiculous trademarking attempts ever.



Hope that one wasn't too trashy!:)