[Upd-discuss] Jewish Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame sued over trademark violation

[Jason Tanenbaum]

Your pointing out the distinction between trademarks and intellectual 
property rights raises a question I have had.  Trademark law, while 
originally conceived as deriving from the intellectual property clause 
of the US Constitution, was long ago ruled to be a regulation of 
business competition rather than an IPR.  I've thought that while this 
might have made sense in the early 20th century, the times they are a 
changing and now it might again be appropriate to think about trademarks 
as IPRs.  After all, copyrights and patents are limited monopolies 
regarding intangible goods as well.  I'm not completely sure what 
difference this re-definition would make, aside from academic 
discussion, but then again you never know.

Cheers,
Jason


>
>Message: 3
>From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
>To: Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>
>Cc: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
>Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Jewish Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame sued over trademark violation
>Reply-To: rms@gnu.org
>Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:02:02 -0500
>
>    In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Cleveland, the museum said 
>    journalists David Segal, Jeffrey Goldberg and radio executive Allen 
>    Goldberg "misappropriated Rock Hall's substantial intellectual property 
>    rights as well as the goodwill associated therewith.
>
>The use of "intellectual property rights" when the issue is
>specifically an instance of trademarks is an instance of how that term
>is used to mislead the public.
>
>A useful thing that readers of this list can do is to write letters to
>the editor of any newspapers that say this statement.  The letters can
>explain that the issue is trademark law, and that using the vague term
>"intellectual property" is an attempt to confuse the public between
>this and copyright and patent law.
>
>The letter can also explain that trademarks are limited monopolies
>created by the government for the purposes of preventing confusion,
>and that trademark holders employ the term "intellectual property" to
>misrepresent what the point is.
>
>
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-- 

Jason Tanenbaum, J.D.
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science
University of Oregon
jtanen@uoregon.edu