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They do this to protect their brand. If you register for a brand, you must specify for which types of goods or services your brand should be valid. These types
by est31 8y ago
They do this to protect their brand. If you register for a brand, you must specify for which types of goods or services your brand should be valid. These types are categorized into so called nice classes [1], where each class has a number and covers a group of products. E.g. class 12 is for cars and class 29 is for meat products, including sausages. Your brand registration can include one or multiple nice classes, and different owners can own different nice classes for the same brand.
Volkswagen posesses a multitude of brands. First, one registered in 1956 [2] that's specific to cars, and another one registered in 1998 [3] that includes every single nice class not covered by the first brand registration.
Having a brand registered is not enough. You must actually place a product into the market, otherwise your government granted monopoly on the brand becomes invalid. They just don't want people to make Volkswagen sausages so they have to do their own.
[1]: https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/en/ https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/en/
[2]: https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/register/621252/DE https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/register/621252/...
[3]: https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/register/398001855/DE https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/register/3980018...
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoI’m not sure they are selling almost 7 million sausages a year just to protect their brand and their ability to make other food products if they so choose. If it was Porchse novelty turkey jerky I would agree, this seems like a real business and tradition for VW.
- Gibbon1 8y agoI think if an oddball division makes money and doesn't require much oversight by the parent company they just toodle along. Especially if the hassle of selling off the division isn't worth managements time.
- llampx 8y agoSomeone please tell Tim Cook this so we can have decent Macs again.
- llagowivel 8y agoBig Macs?
- sohkamyung 8y agoGood one! :-) Apple Big Macs vs McDonalds Big Macs should be an interesting contest.
- nwellnhof 8y ago> categorized into so called nice classes They're called Nice classes, named after the city of Nice (France).
- est31 8y agoYeah, Nice is a proper name in this case. I got the capitalization wrong.
- stiGGG 8y agoDoes this mean by selling these sausages they retain the right to all these entries in your third link? For example the last one „Vermietung von Datenverarbeitungsgeräten“. Someone could make a business leasing computers under the name Volkswagen if they wouldn’t make these wursts?
- est31 8y agoNo, to my knowledge, each item sold only covers its Nice class it falls into. They don't just sell sausages, they also sell things from a large class of other things. There is an online shop: https://shops.volkswagen.com/de_DE/web/lifestyle https://shops.volkswagen.com/de_DE/web/lifestyle