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Don’t you have to use a trademark if you want to keep it or am I thinking of something else?
by ugh 15y ago
Don’t you have to use a trademark if you want to keep it or am I thinking of something else?
- wisty 15y agoYou have to enforce it, which is why companies are so aggressive with trademarks. Patents are a different story.
- ugh 15y agoThat’s not what I mean. Here is what the Wikpedia article about trademarks says: “Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. These rights will cease if a mark is not actively used for a period of time, normally 5 years in most jurisdictions.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_rights) I’m not sure whether or how this applies to this case.
- mikeryan 15y agoYes you do. But thats US law, your mileage may vary in Germany...
- Argorak 15y agoTrademark law is international. Whatever the intention of the law is, the usual scheme is that you just have to enforce it and mention it from time to time. Thats why you can sometimes buy "Raider" instead of "Twix". In addition to that, everyone here should know how corporate lawyers are: shoot first, ask later - nothing special.
- delinka 15y agoI'm pretty sure the United States Congress can't just pass laws and expect them to be enforceable internationally. However, there seems to be quite a bit of parity between US law and European laws with regard to "intellectual property" laws. AFAIK, Apple, Inc does not own their trademark in the business of cafés. I'd generally spout about protecting one's trademarks, but in this case, my opinion is that they've stepped outside of the area where it's even questionable whether they have a case. I'd bet they don't.
- anigbrowl 15y agoThey don't have a case, but they're not trying to make one. They have to make a show of responding to demonstrate that they'll defend their mark by issuing the letter and filing the objection. If they don't, then when their mark is threatened with genuine infringement, the infringer can point to all those other cases involving logos containing apples and say 'you never complained about those, and my logo depicting an apple is not all that different.' What will happen is the Munich PTO will look at it, itemize the differences between the two trademarks, and then (probably) grant the Apfelcafe its trademark. Apfelcafe will do the same thing in the future is someone opens (say) an Apfelkindergarten. If you don't have a record of proactively defending your trademark against possible infringement, then you can lose your claim upon it.
- gujk 15y agoHow is claiming trademark and being conclusively rejected hy the court give greater weight to a future trademark claim than saying nothing at all? That is the opposite of logical.
- morrow 15y agoI think it's due to the two sides of the argument - one is that the proposed trademark is infringing, the other is that the current trademark is being used. Defending it in court every time is a way of supporting the 2nd side of the argument, not necessarily the first.