Trademark ;)

Copyright, trademarks, and patents have been around for a long time. 1790 to be exact, the act stated that they had 14 years with the patent then you would have to renew it, however today you have up to 120 years with the patent.   These things make it so that no one can steal someone’s product or replicate it for their own profit.  Helping the dealer or seller to make sure what they are selling stays true to the original.  However, these all have expirations or clauses to each and some of them go too far to keep what is ‘rightfully’ theirs.

Subway known for their ‘footlong’ subs is now in the process of dubbing the word a trademark for only Subway to use for commercial advertisement.  This process began after Subway threatened a vendor for using the ‘footlong’ while advertising his footlong hot dogs.  Now the trademark is only in an application process yet they are already sending out cease-and-desist and they don’t even have it trademarked yet.  Several large food chains are fighting against the trademark saying it’s too of a common name to trademark.  Casey’s General Store, Sonic, Dairy Queen, and Taco Bell are just a few companies that are fighting this.  

Disney is fighting for its’ right to keep Mickey Mouse as their own.  Evidence has come into the picture that when Mickey Mouse was first shown of the big screen it wasn’t copyrighted.  Even though it is copyrighted today people can still steal it because the first showing wasn’t copyright.  Disney is going to the Supreme Court and even has thrown money around trying to make sure the Mickey Mouse holds its place in the Disney Corporation and nowhere else.  This isn’t the first time that Disney has faced Copyright issues; back in 1999 they were hit with whole ‘Disney’ Copyright.  But they were able to get themselves out of it; they even passed a new law saying that patents can now last up to 120 years.  The new law is known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.  Ironically.

Ever wonder what happened to the Rollback Smiley face Wal-Mart used for all their advertisements?  It wasn’t theirs to have.  In 2006 Wal-Mart tried to trademark the famous symbol as their own only to be turned down when a man known for owning “Smiley World” argued that he had been using the symbol and trademarked before and for much longer than Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart lost the case in 2008 and even though they could still use it because the court deemed Smiley to be too well known.  Wal-Mart now uses the ‘Spark’ for their advertisements and can be shown on new remodeled buildings.  They went ahead and got that trademarked and if you happen to pull a sign down each one say at the bottom of them that the ‘Spark’ is a trademark of Wal-Mart.

Trademarks and Copyright laws where given to us for a reason, for protection of something you own or created, I am pretty glad that we have these laws for a reason.  Even if it is to help the small guy out.