Forum Post: "Occupy Wall St." Being Trademarked for Profit!!!
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 24, 2011, 1:28 p.m. EST by ProgressiveMews
(7)
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This article names a couple on Long Island that has filed for trademarking, to sell products! http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/occupy-wall-street-trademark-986531
Of course I'm assuming that NYCGA and members of OccupyWallSt. have absolutely nothing to do with this, as it is so clearly antithetical to the declaration and principles. If I'm wrong, so be it, but if I'm right and this is not the doing of OccupyWallSt., then I think a statement needs to be released and research done as to what (company) needs to be boycotted out of principle! Or maybe it should simply be ALL commercially produced products?
Not a lawyer but I know a little bit about tm issues from dealing with it myself.
I have to agree with this one commenter:
"Hunter Wilson: Thanks for the brilliant analysis. It's a trademark, not a patent. And all he'll succeed in doing is spending $1000 to trademark a totally indefensible mark. I can think of...oh a few thousand people and organizations that were using the name before him to make goods. Not to mention that nobody is going to listen to him when he issues C&D letters and he'll NEVER sue a single person successfully. Basically, he just made a decision to spend $1K to get a name that he'll pour loads of resources into defending unsuccessfully. Yeah, dude made out big."
It only gives him rights to use it on merchandise and as the above said, probably not even that.
for those who look at thesmokinggun.com with some skeptisim; http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:m07s1k.3.1
Anyone here read Slavoj Zizek? He would say, Of Course! Capitalism appropriates everything, even our best intentions. I think a public decry of any sort of TradeMarking is a necessity.
WOW that is really shady! In that case a disclaimer should be made along the lines of OWS would never sell, charge, or set prices for any type of merchandise including but not limited to handbags, bumper stickers, etc.