J&J sues Red Cross

[Provost Harrison]

So that means that this lawsuit it not at all about greed, it is about helping people then?

[snoopy369]

Kuci is very effectively giving the producer point of view on the matter

However it (obviously) works both ways, and most of the time the producer benefits plenty from the trademark. Hence why they go to so much effort to defend them

Trademarks are valuable to producers basically for the reason Kuci said - people recognize them and know they're buying the correct brand of product - and because of the cost of advertising. Advertising is most effective with brand symbols as well as names (obviously), and many advertisers have spent a fortune on making their trademark symbol (whether it is a name or a logo) become well known.

PH, the reason they don't go defunct is that they don't, as long as the trademark owner continues using them, and defending their trademark from abuses. If either one is no longer true, they actually go quite quickly defunct (as opposed to Copyright, where the work is copyrighted for nearly a century even if you at no point claim copyright...)

The funniest thing about Trademarks that i've heard is from medical trademarks. It seems that any time a pharm company makes a new drug, they think of the stupidest name possible for it - one nearly impossible to say and using lots of weird letters - for its official, scientific name. Then they give it a nice, easy to say real name for its trademarked name.

Why? So that when it goes generic, nobody will be able to ask for it by its formulary name, only remembering the real name

Celebrex = "celecoxib"
Lipitor = "atorvastatin"
etc.

The names look reasonable, but are VERY hard to pronounce, generally having odd syllables in them (xib for example). There are much odder ones, i just picked the first two I could find

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Well, if they want the trademark to remain theirs, they are required by law to defend it. It is not a choice. If they do not defend it, and ARC continues to misuse it (allegedly), then J&J loses the trademark protection, as I understand trademark law...

Bingo. If they fail to defend it in court, they could lose the trademark completely. So in the future, if the Red Cross decides to market generic copies of J&J products and stick the red cross on it, J&J won't win because they failed to defend their trademark back here.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
After 110 years it should be defunct anyway.

So, you'd be happy if you went to the store, bought cans of Coca-Cola and found out you actually bought bottled (or canned) water made by another company because the trademark had expired?

[chequita guevara]

I'd be happier if corporations didn't live longer than humans.

[DinoDoc]

Be happy then. The unsuccessful ones don't.

[Japher]

How long has the red cross been using the symbol without J&J's permission?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'd be happier if corporations didn't live longer than humans.

That's silly.

[Japher]

remember, he's a commie

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Kuci is very effectively giving the producer point of view on the matter

This is also silly. Trademarks only restrict producers' abilities, not consumers, so producers as a whole don't have any interest in trademarks as a way to get power over consumers.

[Ben Kenobi]

Trademarks don't exists for the sake of businesses, they exist to help consumers. By giving a business exclusive use of a mark that they put on their products (their trade mark), it permits consumers to know that the product they purchased was really made by the manufacturer they believe.

Fair enough. My question is why do companies use them when they are only beneficial to the consumer, and why do they defend themselves so fiercely?

Trademarks are a way in which companies can acheive differentiation of their products as well as brand loyalty, and enables them to sell at a premium and remain competitive.

In this case, using the symbol for the Red Cross, is not harmful to the J&J folks, it gives them additional benefits. Harassing the Red Cross just gets them bad publicity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
In this case, using the symbol for the Red Cross, is not harmful to the J&J folks, it gives them additional benefits. Harassing the Red Cross just gets them bad publicity.

'Cause then any company can start to use it since the trademark ceases to exist. Suddenly all sorts of companies are using the red cross and J&J can't do a damn thing about it because it failed to protect its trademark.

[Kuciwalker]

Fair enough. My question is why do companies use them when they are only beneficial to the consumer, and why do they defend themselves so fiercely?

Within the trademark system, a company that doesn't defend its trademarks is at a disadvantage relative to the others, obviously, since anyone can pass of shoddy goods as that company's.

In this case, using the symbol for the Red Cross, is not harmful to the J&J folks, it gives them additional benefits. Harassing the Red Cross just gets them bad publicity.

Jesus Christ Ben, this isn't hard. Just so everyone can see it:

J&J only holds the red cross trademark for certain classes of products, e.g. bandages. They have an agree with the ARC specifying this. The ARC recently started licensing the red cross mark for those products to other companies - J&J's competitors - despite the fact that the ARC does not own the right to use the mark on those products - J&J does. So J&J is suing the ARC for violating their trademark.

[Dr Strangelove]

Doesn't the use of the red cross symbol actually date back to Henry Dunant's organization founded in 1859? Johnson and Johnson is an international corporation now, is it not? Do they have a deal with the IRC, whose claim certainly predates either the ARC or Johnson and Johnson? In fact, did the American Red Cross really have the right to negotiate the use of the symbol of the IRC, and is it really possible for a company to claim as an official trademark a symbol used by another entity prior to that company beginning to use the symbol?

[Kuciwalker]

J&J's claim is probably only in the US, where only US trademarks matter.