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No, trademarking “red” for soft drinks is stupid, but people still shouldn’t be allowed to use Coca Colas labels to sell non Coca Cola soft drinks. If you want

No, trademarking “red” for soft drinks is stupid, but people still shouldn’t be allowed to use Coca Colas labels to sell non Coca Cola soft drinks. If you want to make a red label with white letters on it that is named Awesome Cola, then you should absolutely be allowed to do that. If Coca Cola can’t protect their business by making the best product then they can frankly fuck right off. This is the European mindset at least, consumers owe nothing to corporations.

tshaddox 4y ago
The thing is, to show that a product violates a trademark requires showing that consumers are confused or will be confused about the origin of the product. This seems to always get lost when people see sensational descriptions of trademarks like "DeWalt owns the colors yellow and black." No, they don't own a color or combination of colors. It doesn't even mean that no other power tool can be yellow or black, because it's probably possible to make a power tool that is yellow or black but which doesn't confuse consumers into thinking it's a DeWalt power tool.
- EnKopVand 4y ago
  I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about trademarks, but we’ve had a few cases here in Denmark where a small business were basically on a path to close down because a larger chain reported the small business for trademark infringement over something silly like having the same last name in your business that the large chain is called. Because of the way the law works, you have to spend some months defending yourself (and shut down your business while you change your name/logo/whatever), which often isn’t affordable for small businesses. Luckily Denmark being Denmark, as soon as these things hit the news the public responds by hating the larger business and throwing amazing amounts of support at the small businesses. I just don’t think the law is very good when the public needs to circumvent it in order for the small businesses to survive, even when the small businesses are in the right to begin with. So you are very likely absolutely correct, but because the world sort of sucks, the copyright law still hurts people it shouldn’t. I’m not sure there is an easy solution, because obviously you wouldn’t want direct copy products or DeWalt in stores either, but it’s certainly not good the way it is right now.

tshaddox 4y ago

The thing is, to show that a product violates a trademark requires showing that consumers are confused or will be confused about the origin of the product. This seems to always get lost when people see sensational descriptions of trademarks like "DeWalt owns the colors yellow and black." No, they don't own a color or combination of colors. It doesn't even mean that no other power tool can be yellow or black, because it's probably possible to make a power tool that is yellow or black but which doesn't confuse consumers into thinking it's a DeWalt power tool.

EnKopVand 4y ago
I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about trademarks, but we’ve had a few cases here in Denmark where a small business were basically on a path to close down because a larger chain reported the small business for trademark infringement over something silly like having the same last name in your business that the large chain is called. Because of the way the law works, you have to spend some months defending yourself (and shut down your business while you change your name/logo/whatever), which often isn’t affordable for small businesses. Luckily Denmark being Denmark, as soon as these things hit the news the public responds by hating the larger business and throwing amazing amounts of support at the small businesses. I just don’t think the law is very good when the public needs to circumvent it in order for the small businesses to survive, even when the small businesses are in the right to begin with. So you are very likely absolutely correct, but because the world sort of sucks, the copyright law still hurts people it shouldn’t. I’m not sure there is an easy solution, because obviously you wouldn’t want direct copy products or DeWalt in stores either, but it’s certainly not good the way it is right now.