[pp.int.general] Fake Rolex

[Edison Carter]

> Mikko Särelä wrote:
>> Or perhaps, we shouldn't have trademark laws that are designed to protect
>> companies. Instead we could have laws that protect consumers from
>> fraudulent naming of products (e.g. naming things so that the consumer is
>> likely to mistake the product for another).
>>
>> It is the consumer who suffers and who should be compensate instead of the
>> big corps.
>
> That would be only a slight change in the idea of trademarks. I like it. :)
>

It's just a matter of focus; trademark law protects both the consumer
(buying fake rolexes) and the companies (cheap imitations taking
advantage of Rolex's name) .. and I don't think there's anything wrong
with either purpose as long as we have a clear recognition if what
Trademark is supposed to be for and maintain a balance where
protecting the consumer is given at least equal priority.

There may occasionally be companies with a good reputation who get
bought out and start selling 'crap' products, at which time consumers
will still have some protection through other laws such as the
Consumer Guarantees Act (in New Zealand) or similar laws elsewhere,
but on the whole companies who have built up a reputation for quality
usually want to protect that reputation.

Yes there are idiotic cases such as Renault, Monster Cable, and almost
anything involving the Olympics. That's not an inherent fault of
Trademark law itself, that's a failure to recognise what trademark is
and isn't... companies and lawyers thinking about trademark as
"Intellectual Property" rather than "reputation" or "Identity". I
don't think there needs to be any major change in Trademark law
itself, just that the courts need to more consistently apply the
principle "would a typical consumer/customer (moron in a hurry) be
confused by this" -- There's no risk that a child named Megan Renaud
is going to confuse anyone into buying a car from the wrong company.
There's no chance that anyone will accidentally buy overpriced speaker
cables from "Monster Mini-putt". And f*ck it, the entire modern
Olympics needs to just die in a fire.

And yes, if consumers want to buy a $300 "iPod" instead of an equal
quality and less restricted generic mp3 player for a third of the
price I don't really see that as a problem either. They should have
just as much right as anyone else to know that they're getting a
genuine Apple® iPod®. I defend the consumer's right to be sheep if
they want to!!