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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (169907)	8/26/2005 2:20:08 AM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Say, for example, that you're Ralph Lauren (who is way, way, way out there in litigating against anything that uses Polo) and you've been in business with your trademarks for 10 years. After that, anyone should be able to use his trademarks for free? What is he to do, change his name? I think that Lauren is a big bully when it comes to litigation and is extreme but I don't think that anyone should be able to use his name just because he's used it in business for 10 years. I don't know when the first Harry Potter book came out but it's probably been 5-6 years. Do you think that Rowling should get zero royalties from her first book in 5 years? Should anyone be able to extend the Harry Potter franchise for free in 5 years by using her characters in their own books? I agree that the laws are abused sometimes and that BigPharma is a good example of that. However, IP laws protect the small guy as well as the big corporation. In fact, if the small guy were better able to afford litigation to protect his rights, it would level the playing field.