More "Trademark" issues

That's hard on the props.

Oops, forgot - they all fly Gulfstreams, now.

And how does a "right" as you have quoted below translate into a piece of property. If I lease something I have a right to use it but I don't own it. It is exactly my point that this is a license (a granting of certain rights usually limited in time) and not property which has no limits. By pushing the use of the term property it is the purpose to make these rights permanent. The push to make trademarks control all instances of the trademark instead of just instances where there is some confusion in the market place is exactly an attempt to convert this licensed right into full property which is essentially limited. Yes I know that property can be taken away by eminent domain and that you can't do anything you want with property, but this is very different then the case with these intellectual rights.

Ken Harstine

[This followup was posted to rec.models.railroad and a c> Ken Harst> > Please tell me where in the contitution it even mentions the words

[ Snip ]

That document is downright revolutionary! It's so depressing to read the Declaration, and to then look at what the current US government has become.

I doubt it is on many maps, but it does exist.< Well I knew that, I mean about Hell MI. VBG

Unless the Defense Department included a specific provision in the contract which prevented the Contractor from licensing their design, the argument won't hold water. The Contractor owns the design.

Yeah... I think that warning was mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And, with other Corp.s of like mind, a patent on stupidity, as well as chickenshit.

which prevented the Contractor from licensing their design, the argument won't hold water. The Contractor owns the design.<

I thought congress just passed a law that prevents any DOD purchased items from being licensed again. Or has it not gone through yet?

It's in a bill for next year's defense spending. Do a Google search on "H.R.1815" and look at section 820 of the bill.

Regardless, this would only affect future production.

That's what the whole argument turns on right there. Of all these

1,000-1,500 RRs that the UP Borg has assimilated over the decades, how many marks are still in active use, versus the ones they inherited because they haven't gotten around to painting them over yet? I'm thinking WP, SP, D&RGW, C&NW, and countless other "modern" roads that has been annihilated.

And with college full-time, I haven't had time to follow any fallout from the SP/D&RGW decision from a while back that said they were public domain. Any further decisions on the inevitable appeal?

I agree with #1. Never had a problem with that. I agree with #2. They've gone to great lengths to wipe out the assimilated roads' identities. I most wholeheartedly agree with #3. It's the modern American way. It's never the principle of whether or not you're right or wrong, it comes down to which way will cost the least money, and it's sad that the bean counters control even the legal system.

Let's put it this way, Ken. Go invent something new and revolutionary that everyone wants. I'll copy your idea, market the hell out of it, and everyone will buy mine instead of yours, even though mine is an exact copy of yours. Wouldn't you be pissed off? You put all the time and effort into developing the whatever-it-is and I copied it, costing me no time and effort in R&D. I make way more profit than you do, even if I sell less than you do. Under your system (based on the statement above) I owe you nothing.

in article 9YA2f.1589$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com, Jay Cunnington at snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net wrote on 10/10/05 2:22 PM:

It's not the bean counters who cause the problem,; they are merely pragmatists who point out the costs. It is the Trial Lawyers Association (largest contributors to the Democratic Party at last count, though the NEA may have surpassed them recently) that consistently lobbies against tort reform, including LOSER PAYS changes.

If a deep pocket sues you, and it is not an abuse of process (essentially impossible to prove), you must pay to defend yourself. Think $500 an hour and hundreds, maybe thousands of hours in an intellectual property case). If you think you are right and fight it to the end and WIN convincingly, you still lose: you can't sue the deep pocket for your legal fees. So, if half a million is chump change to UP, but it is a "bet the company" for Mom&Pop's Model Railroads, and there is no way to recover, your bean counters tell you to quit.

If we had a loser pays system, at least if you really really thought you were right, and you were, the other side would pay for your lawyers. I suspect we would then have contingency fees on the defense side of these kinds of cases for a change.

I don't know why the TLA is against this: it is sort of a full employment act for litigation defense lawyers who now mostly get paid by insurance companies in personal injury cases. That could be expanded to being paid by the losers in all kinds of cases where the defense was strong, but had no countersuit possibility.

in article h1B2f.1623$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com, Jay Cunnington at snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net wrote on 10/10/05 2:27 PM:

To make your example closer to trademark, etc.,

You start a company and think up a clever name and logo. You do business for years and establish a reputation for honesty, good service, whatever (not relevant to UP ? ;-).

Then someone else comes along and uses your name and/or logo to sell some product (I don't really care if it is a good or bad product), and they are successful because of YOUR reputation: they have leveraged YOUR work and you have not been compensated; you should be.

Worse, someone comes along and uses your logo and name to market a product which the market place thinks you endorse, but you don't, let say, UP Urinals. You might be pissed off (ok, enough of this analogy). You should have a right to control the use of the logo, name, et al for which you have worked to establish a reputation.

Fallen flags? Different problem...it's back to the legal cost issue of another off topic thread.

I don't know which track we've been down more often: The hot McDonalds coffee topic, or the reason for 4'-8 1/2" gauge. ____ Mark

Red herring. The argument is about the modelling of railway cars bearing the trademarks of an existing railway. Nobody is arguing that patent law should be abolished, only that intellectual property law has been extended into areas where is does not apply.

It's precisely because an idea cannot be owned that the state grants a limited time _license_ to the person who first applies it in some new way. A trademark is not an invention or an application of an idea, it's a way of identifying the manufacturer and seller of the product or service. Whether the product or service is protected by a patent or not is a different issue entirely. A trademark protects both consumer and manufacturer against counterfeits. (Well, it reduces the odds, anyhow. It makes it too much of hassle to counterfeit anything except luxury goods, and people who think a luxury brand is a guarantee of actual quality are idjits who deserve to be scammed both ways.)

Do you believe that an HO model of a UP SD70MAC is a counterfeit UP (or EMD) locomotive?

in article Y5I2f.116363$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com, Mark Mathu at snipped-for-privacy@mathu.com wrote on 10/10/05 10:30 PM:

Well many of us have layouts which go 'round and 'round, so we are used to it.

in article DXP2f.3330$ snipped-for-privacy@news20.bellglobal.com, Wolf Kirchmeir at snipped-for-privacy@sympatico.ca wrote on 10/11/05 7:27 AM:

Red Herring. The trademark issue is whether someone who buy as UP SD70MAC thinks that UP endorses the product (design, quality, etc.) since the trademark is all over the package and product. For current trademarks in use by the owner, I think they have a perfect right to regulate its use.

Fallen flags? Different argument.

The model maker's trademark is on the package, not UP's. So anyone who who is dumb enough to think that UP endorses the product is too dumb to be taken seriously. (Contrast John Deere and Coca Cola, which insist that their trademarks are on the packages of the models they sponsor.)

[...]