FC: More on Mastercard, from someone who once sent trademark nastygrams

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 10:20:43 -0400
Subject: Re: FC: More on Mastercard lawyers threatening Attrition.org over
        satire
From: "Wendy Leibowitz" <wendytech () earthlink net>
To: declan () well com

Mr. Leavitt is correct that trademark lawyers are required to "zealously
defend" their clients' trademarks. Until recently this was interpreted as
meaning that vicious letters went out to anyone using a client's trademark,
or something similar to a client's trademark. (Remember Pokey.org, the
12-year old boy called Pokey who got those letters, and eventually a
lawsuit, from the lawyers for Art Clokey, inventor of Gumby and his little
red horse, Pokey?) The resultant bad publicity did a great deal of damage to
the client, as Mastercard is discovering in this case, and as the lawyers
for Warner Brothers discovered when they fired off threatening letters to
little Harry Potter fans. Not every use of a trademark is infringement, and
there are many tools to fight infringement other than threats.

In the face of the Internet, I think trademark lawyers are changing their
tactics. At least sophisticated trademark lawyers are--Mastercard doesn't
seem to have those, yet. (They rightly threatened Ralph Nader's ads because,
in part, you don't want your company to appear to endorse any political
candidate). If they played this parody with a little sense of humor, they
would get valuable publicity for their client, remind the world of trademark
rights, and get even more mileage out of a successful and memorable ad
campaign.

I wrote an article about new trademark tactics. (I used to send those stupid
threatening letters). It's at
http://www.wendytech.com/articlesnyresolntm.htm

Best regards,
Wendy

Wendy R. Leibowitz
Legal Technology Columnist
Editor, E-Filing Report
1140 23rd St. NW
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.wendytech.com
"Remember, even pencils break." --John F. Kennedy




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------