Don't cross the Red Cross says judge


The New York Times reports that Johnson & Johnson hasn't met with a great deal of success in its US trade mark claims against the Red Cross. The companies had shared the use of the symbol since 1895 under a coexistence agreement. However, Johnson & Johnson got tetchy once it began licensing the symbol to commercial organisations to raise funds. However, this week, Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a Manhattan-based District Court judge ruled that the Congressional Charter under which the Red Cross operates allows it to use the red cross symbol for business purposes. The judge also found that the charitable motivation behind the activities strengthened the Red Cross' claim.

The IPKat reckons that the Congressional protection granted to the Red Cross organisation makes this into a special case, but as a matter of principle, there's a balance to be struck: charities shouldn't be able to ride roughshod over the rights of others, particularly when there are other alternatives, but companies take their reputations into their own hands when they decide to sue a charity.
Don't cross the Red Cross says judge Don't cross the Red Cross says judge Reviewed by Anonymous on Friday, May 16, 2008 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.