30 years ago there was a pinball parlour called 'Disney' in my town Kokura -250 thousand population, small enough to be ignored by Giant company Disney.
This company was sued by Disney and changed the name to Dianey.
Soon the remains of the word that associates with Disney completely banished at all.
At that time I was really amazed to see the consequences.
Now I'm not amazed at all seeing the prosperity Disney established in Tokyo Disney Land.
You mean that name was already in use by your town prior to Walt Disney getting the copy right ? That is amazing to me.I don't understand the wheeling & dealing of the "Big Names " at all .Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIf they hadn't registered the name, and Walt did, then this could happen. But 30 years ago can't be before Walt Disney got the copyright, that was in the 1930es.
ReplyDeleteDon't mix up trademark and copyright. "Disney" is a trademark. The rules around trademark vary very widely by jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions the mark needs to be registered. In some jurisdictions ownership of the mark is absolute, while in others a risk of confusion has to be demonstrated.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what Japanese trademark law is.
I knew the word was wrong, but I couldn't remember "trademark". It's also possible to monopolize names and logos that have nothing to with trade, e.g. the AA logo (Alcoholics Anynomous).
ReplyDeleteThe jurisdiction must be pretty much the world in some cases. There's a German company - I forget if it makes medicine or beauty products - that has registered the name "Ayurvedic", meaning that no Indian company may use it in spite of the fact that both the name and the tradition is Indian and 3000 years old. Perhaps they can use it in India, but nowhere abroad - they are furious.
In the US, the laws around trademark have as much to do with consumer protection as they do intellectual property. If you buy a product sold under a certain brand and are happy with it, you should be able to find the same product again. Some other company shouldn't be able to copy the brand marks and trick you into buying their product.
ReplyDeleteA big factor in US trademark law is the possibility of confusion. Disney has a reputation for providing high quality entertainment. Another entertainment company couldn't use "Disney" to sell their products. However, if an auto part manufacturer wanted to call themselves Disney Auto Parts, they likely can. No reasonable person is likely to base their auto part buying decision based on the reputation of an entertainment company, and no reasonable person is likely to allow a bad experience buying auto parts to affect their plans to vacation at a Disney resort.
Another factor in US trademark law is how generic the mark is. "Super Clean" laundry detergent would be a bad brand name, because "Super Clean" is a generic term that one might associate with laundry detergent. "Super Clean" would not be eligible for trademark protection. "Tide", on the other hand, has nogeneric association with laundry detergent, and so makes a reasonable distinctive brand name, and can be trademarked. Under US law, "Ayurvedic" could not be trademarked if it is used to mark something having to do with health care and medicine, but I could trademark something like "Ayurvedic Semiconductors" or
"Ayurvedic Laundromat".
Mm. I know it was impossible to "trademark" AA, probably because it's just two characters that may stand for a lot of things, but the logo was another matter.
ReplyDeleteAs for ayurvedic, I only know there was a big outcry in a Delhi newspaper some years ago. I've no concern with the business world at all, but yeah, it would be confusing if 8 different kinds of soap powder were called Ariel.
What amazed me was why Disney had to mind the same name used in a small town in the country of Far East.
ReplyDeleteI realised later the reason, it was because Disney already had a world strategy to expand their business. It was 25 years ago when Tokyo Disney Land was opened.
Till then we only knew famous characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in animations and we didn't feel particularly strange their use of 'Disney', because Disney was just a synonym of 'amusement'.
About thirty years ago Coca-Cola company made a canned coffee- this is very popular in our country, called 'Georgia' . It was originally not admitted to obtain a registered trademark. The reason was people usually think 'Georgia' is a name of the state in America, not a name for a canned coffee. Years had passed, 'Georgia' was admitted to be a trademark by authorities as the name became much more popular among Japanese people.
ReplyDeleteMy surname happens to be free from the restrictions of trademark law, but I probably surely feel troublesome if I can't use my surname freely just because my surname happens to be the same as the real famous Giant company.
Trademark law was made from mainly commercial purposes and ought not to be abused arbitrarily.