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[ga] trademark issues


Pat..

I can give you one even more complicated which will probably end up before
the courts before it is over and is totally mind-boggling in many areas.

The term bull and bear is symbolic of markets the world over and dates back
to the 15th century at least - probably longer.   Both the NYSE and the
Singapore exchange have statues in their lobbies - and probably a lot more
firms.  The bull is symbolic of a market going up - or a person who buys and
a bear symbolic of a market going down - or a person who sells.  It is used
as a noun, adjective and verb or a part of it and absolutely no idea in how
many languages.    In addition, of course, there are the animals and the
thousands of sports teams who use part of it  - but they don't count :)  

In researching it, the first use I could find goes back to the Vatican.   The
term was first used as bulla-beara - which was a hated term for the messenger
delivering the bad notices from the Vatican - like a financial statement of
taxes owed, property being repossessed, or your head if you were a woman
involved in adultry :)  .. The bulla being a leather pouch  or bull a
proclamation issued by teh Pope.   The bearea is , of course, the bearer of
such bad news.  The term "boogie bear" also goes back to it too.   

In my opinion, there is absolutely no way a name like this can be protected
by trademark laws even tho one was granted on Bull & Bear.    You have to be
able to police or control the use of your trademark which is impossible in
this case since every paper in the world would be in violation, along with
restaurants, bars, clubs, jewelry, reports, books, magazines, t-shirt mfgrs,
etc., etc., etc.

Last time I checked there were over a million uses of it on the internet, and
some 800 sites registered using it or one part  of it - yet one corporation
TM owner  claims rights to it which is ridiculous.

Of course, I'm prejudiced!  :)

jess





In a message dated 4/7/2001 2:03:03 PM Central Daylight Time,
patrick@quad.net.au writes:


>>In Australia, nobody would associate "Freedom Furniture" with "Freedom
Tampons"
but everybody would easily recognise the two very well lnown brands.

I don't know whether they both have exactly the same mark "Freedom" but
clearly
they could have.  Both would be entitled to claim the domain name>>





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