5 ms·
In general, you don't have any obligation to enforce your rights. There is the well-known exception of trademark law, but that's in the nature of the matter. I
by cedilla 5y ago
In general, you don't have any obligation to enforce your rights.
There is the well-known exception of trademark law, but that's in the nature of the matter. If PepsiCo sells Coca-Cola and the Coca-Cola company doesn't react, then the trade mark obviously doesn't allow customers to identify genuine Coca-Cola.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoYou don't have an obligation and in theory (and only in theory) it doesn't matter but a history of doing it anyway sure as shit helps in court.
- rsynnott 5y agoGo to YouTube. You will find lots of old BBC stuff; the BBC largely doesn’t bother with active enforcement for anything before 1980 or so. Now, start a website selling Doctor Who episodes, and see how far your incomplete enforcement argument gets you with the court.
- account42 5y agoThat is still consistent enforcement of the Doctor Who copyrights though.
- knorker 5y agoDoes it? This is the first I've heard of it.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoTheoretically no, but the court is more likely to side with you if your lawyer can go down the list checking off each reason this lawsuit is like the last one that you won.
- knorker 5y agoSo actually no, then? It actually won't be held against your case. It's just that you don't have a template yet, you don't have a precedent? Yeah, that's entirely completely different.
- PatentlyDC123 5y agoYour example seems a bit off. Yes, Coca-cola is not required to enforce their trademark via legal means; however, they may lose the ability to prove infringement of the mark later (even in another case) if they do not police use of the mark. I think there was also a case or course of legal thought by some judges that the mark's owner owed a duty (fiduciary maybe?) to actively protect the mark from infringement or risk losing the trademark rights altogether.