3 ms·

So we should sue all glass manufacturers to stop them from putting out windows in case Microsoft decides to get into that side business? I am of course joking,

So we should sue all glass manufacturers to stop them from putting out windows in case Microsoft decides to get into that side business? I am of course joking, but that's the problem with protecting side products, especially in likeness vs actual logo situations (again,just think of all the manufacturers of crappy, leaky, easily breakable windows that need to be upgraded prematurely, that would have to shut down). If you study economics for any length of time you will realize the majority of human misery is driven by market power abuses restricting human ingenuity, pushing labor prices artificially, etc. Copyright, patent, and trademark explicitly increase market power substantially and so it is very dangerous to do what the supreme court did, as the fundamental test for these things should be "what is the minimum we can do to solve x?" where x is a problem like brand confusion, product safety, etc. What was done in this ruling was to push us even further from the minimum and it's a very bad thing for society.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Your example is so absurd I feel it hardly warrants comment. If a window manufacturer puts out windows with the MS windows logo, and when you open it it makes the XP startup sound, then yes, I think it would be infringing. But nobody thinks a plain window would be confused with MS Windows. I don't see any problem with this ruling whatsoever. It says nothing about parody for non-commercial purposes. The dog toy owner was specifically trying to leverage JD's brand for his own economic benefit. And it's not like a patent, where patent owners try to remove the ability to make something that sometimes isn't even that novel in the public sphere. Slippery slope arguments are incredibly weak here if you look at the actual content of the ruling.
- stonogo 3y ago
  There is no 'non-commercial' requirement for protection of parody, thank god.
- simiones 3y ago
  It also says nothing about parody for commercial purposes. It just says that you can't claim parody as a defense of your own trademark. If the dog toys had had some specific trademark of the original company, but then also some parody of Jack Daniels bottles on them, the ruling may well have agreed that they are protected under the parody exceptions. The problem was not that they were profitting off of their parody, but that they used the parody itself as their only trademark. It's as if instead of the band AQUA releasing a song called "Barbie Girl", there had been a band called "Barbie Girl" which used the Barbie logo in all of their branding and album covers, and then tried to claim they were just a parody.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Your example is so absurd I feel it hardly warrants comment. If a window manufacturer puts out windows with the MS windows logo, and when you open it it makes the XP startup sound, then yes, I think it would be infringing. But nobody thinks a plain window would be confused with MS Windows. I don't see any problem with this ruling whatsoever. It says nothing about parody for non-commercial purposes. The dog toy owner was specifically trying to leverage JD's brand for his own economic benefit. And it's not like a patent, where patent owners try to remove the ability to make something that sometimes isn't even that novel in the public sphere. Slippery slope arguments are incredibly weak here if you look at the actual content of the ruling.

stonogo 3y ago
There is no 'non-commercial' requirement for protection of parody, thank god.
simiones 3y ago
It also says nothing about parody for commercial purposes. It just says that you can't claim parody as a defense of your own trademark. If the dog toys had had some specific trademark of the original company, but then also some parody of Jack Daniels bottles on them, the ruling may well have agreed that they are protected under the parody exceptions. The problem was not that they were profitting off of their parody, but that they used the parody itself as their only trademark. It's as if instead of the band AQUA releasing a song called "Barbie Girl", there had been a band called "Barbie Girl" which used the Barbie logo in all of their branding and album covers, and then tried to claim they were just a parody.