[Commons-Law] trademarks/royalty

[Shamnad Basheer]

sounds ridiculous to me, Tripta.

you cant charge royalty without having some proprietary claim (intellectual property) over the "button". i dont recollect what these look like-but you could possibly run one of the following arguments to claim an IP right over the same:

1. the design of the button is unique and therefore protectable OR amounts to an artistic work meriting copyright protection.

2. waiters wearing these buttons add to the "trade-dress" element of TGIF-something on the lines of the Taco-cabana case (a little far-fetched, no doubt-but which IP argument in todays context isnt??). 

I'm sure IP lawyers would be able to come up with countless other arguments once they put their head to it. assuming that such a claim is valid in law, then other waiters cannot wear these buttons without paying royalty...

regards-Shamnad

 
 tripta <tripta at sarai.net> wrote:This write up from the site 
http://mobilix.org/mobilix_asterix.html which details the proceedings of the 
Obelix vs. mobilix case. As Obelix is the trademark of Les Éditions Albert 
René, a legal action has been undertaken by them against the company mobilix 
to withdraw the name as they are quite `similar'. This raises important 
questions regarding the scope of the trademarks and their infringements. Have 
a look at the responses to the same on the slashdot site. 
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/31/1419240&tid=123

Just off the mark, yesterday at T.G.I.F one of the pamphlets narrating it's 
anecdotal history stated how wearing `Buttons' was a trend initiated by the 
waiters and waitress at T.G.I.F and that to ensure the popularity of the same 
the company has been kind enough not to charge a royalty on the same, i.e, 
wearing `buttons'. Would anyone please elaborate on the same? The mechanism 
of charging royalty and the penalty for same. What if TGIF charged royalty? 
what would that mean?

cheers 
tripta
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