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I’ve thought for a while that trademarks should be non-transferrable, and should be voided on change-of-control of a company. Their primary purpose is to let t
by kd5bjo 6y ago
I’ve thought for a while that trademarks should be non-transferrable, and should be voided on change-of-control of a company. Their primary purpose is to let the consumer know the origin of goods, and to allow companies to build a reputation around intangible properties of their products, like longevity, quality, and craftsmanship. Selling a trademark is fundamentally betraying that trust in exchange for a monetary reward, which wouldn’t be acceptable behavior in other settings.
- neiman 6y agoThat's a brilliant proposal.
- wojtekkru 6y agoWould you consider company going public as change-of-control that should trigger voiding trademarks?
- kd5bjo 6y agoDefining what represents a change-of-control is probably the trickiest part of moving this from an interesting idea to a real proposal. Probably, the key factor should be whether or not the senior management and/or the board membership stays essentially the same; new management should be required to earn their own trust from customers that might not follow company news.
- jfk13 6y ago> senior management and/or the board membership stays essentially the same Defining "essentially the same" sounds hard, especially if a series of "small" changes happen over a period of time. Ship of Theseus, anyone?
- gpm 6y agoA series of small changes gives consumers time to react and the value of the brand to naturally evolve, so arguably that's not a problem.
- throwawaylolx 6y ago>so arguably that's not a problem. As soon as you try defining "small changes" and the period of time on which they can occur, it is arguably a problem that will lead to loopholes easily abused by the legal departments of any big corp.
- pjc50 6y agoRealistically that means no brand lasting longer than about ten years, and the total elimination of lots of century-old brands that people have fond relationships with. It's a stupidly excessive hammer that fails to address the real problems. And it's probably going to suffer the obvious free speech challenges.
- throwawaylolx 6y ago> lots of century-old brands that people have fond relationships with. That's the problem being discussed--the fond relationships are built with entities that no longer exist, and it is argued that current brand practices are deceiving for the consumer side of the relationship and abusive on the producer side.
- dTal 6y ago"Free speech" is a ridiculous charge to level at this. The concept of a government-protected trademark is itself a restriction on free speech in the first place, as are all consumer-protection labeling laws.
- smeyer 6y agoThe purpose here is also likely to be very different for different use cases. You might not want the Apple trademark to be transferable as the management changes because you care about their approach to privacy. On the other hand, a consumer who thinks Diet Coke is tasty probably doesn't want to have to look up what brand name they were forced to change to when the CEO quit just to keep buying their favorite soda at the grocery store.
- mongol 6y agoVery interesting. Is this your own idea or has it been more widely discussed?
- kd5bjo 6y agoI don't recall hearing it from anywhere, but it's the sort of idea I'd expect to crop up from time to time. I haven't done any research to find out if anyone else has seriously suggested or investigated it.
- burnishing 6y agoThe purpose of trademarks is to capture value for their holders, not consumers. That it is why it is the holders who are awarded damages.