[OT] trademarks (was: Re: Bundling)

[Mark Davis ☕]

Well, my authority for this information *is* an expert in trademark law, a
past president of the International Trademark Association (INTA). Full
disclosure: she's also my wife, so I pretty much have to go by what she says
;-)

Mark


On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 02:14, "Martin J. Dürst" <duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp>wrote:

> Hello Mark,
>
> Thanks for the very interesting data.
>
> On 2009/12/08 6:51, Mark Davis ☕ wrote:
>
>> Interestingly, I have it on good authority that in terms of trademarks,
>> eszett and ss are treated the same -- that is, in trademark lingo, a
>> phrase
>> that only differed by exchanging these characters from a trademark would
>> infringe that trademark.
>>
>
> I'm in no way a lawyer, and not at all an expert in trademark law. But
> assume there was a village with two traditional bakeries, one called
> Bäckerei Boss and another Bäckerei Boß. It's very well possible that they
> both would get their trademarks protected, based on the fact that everybody
> in the village knew they were different. That would be different if one was
> well-established, and the other was a newcomer, which is I guess the case
> you are referring to.
>
> On the other hand, if somebody tried to open a hamburger chain and call it
> Wendys or Wendy or Wendi's or some such, it's highly likely that Wendy's
> would successfully claim a violation of their trademark, based on the fact
> that it's easy to confuse these, and that "Wendy's" is already well
> established.
>
> Lawyers are not computer scientists, and law doesn't work like computers,
> but tries (many times not very well) to adjust to people's varying
> perceptions.
>
> Regards,   Martin.
>
>
> --
> #-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
> #-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp   mailto:duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp
>
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