According to Mother Jones, a half-year ago, the office manager for Jeb Bush & Associates, set up a shell corporation, BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and trademarked the campaign logo for Jeb!’s campaign. One has to wonder if the campaign pays royalties on Jeb! swag, enriching the (unnamed) shareholders of BHAG.
If that’s the case, it’s an interesting way to profit from running for president, no?
And just remember: every time you type Jeb! you’re committing a trademark violation; and trademark law stipulates that trademarks must be defended. What could possibly go wrong?
What’s interesting to me is that BHAG is clearly a reference to Jim Collins’ book Built to Last, and the phrase “big hairy audacious goal” made something of a stir in the corporate world at the end of the 90’s.
I’ve read it, and the followup “Good to Great”. I’d recommend them. As to BHAG, Inc. making money off of the Jeb! logo? Well, someone was going to make money off that, I guess. If not Jeb, then someone else was going to sell the swag. If it stays in the campaign, then there are a bunch of rules about how it can be spent.Report
Okay zic but so what? Why does this matter? If anything Id give points for being clever but i dont think thats your intent.Report
You attribute some intent to me that I don’t hold, I think, @notme
You’re the one who likes to play ‘gotcha’ ideology games; and you presume I’m just like you.
It seems to me that when running a campaign, a politician would want people to use their logo, to spread it around. Trademarks need to be defended from that very thing. So it’s either an indication that Jeb! is not serious about actually being president, and just wants to enrich himself from running, or that he’s failed to think about the repercussions of having his logo trademarked on a successful campaign, where he’s (by trademark law) required to defend it from people using it without first licensing it; which makes having folk spread your message mighty difficult.Report
I maybe wrong here, but if he owns the trademark, and it gets spread around, then it is up to the trademark holder to decide to sue or not, no? You say there is law that says he has to sue, but the only information I could find says that it is up the trademark holder to “ to make sure that your mark is not used by another company, diluted or made generic. A trademark is considered diluted if another company, usually in a different industry, uses a mark that is similar enough to the registered trademark such that customers could confuse the two. A trademark becomes generic when it is used so often that it becomes associated with a general category of products rather than the particular product offered by the owner of the mark. Whether infringing use copies a trademark, dilutes it, or attempts to make it generic, enforcing a trademark is the responsibility of the person who holds it, and doing so may require legal action against the infringing
This might allow him to protect his name but at the same time give latitude to his supporters.Report
That’s not how trademark works; trademark holders don’t get to pick-and-choose; they either defend or, if they don’t, lose the right to the trademark if someone else uses it.
I’m sure, though, that this is the intent, and one that would prevent uses the candidate (or his minions at the corporation) deems unfavorable. But a violation by a site like Mother Jones (or here!) would not be upheld of other sites infringed without repercussion.Report
Well, if it is up to the trademark holder to defend, as the link I posted states, then barring more information ( a more informative link, or one of the laywers here weighs in) I think they are on the right track.
As for OT or Mother Jones, it looks like the law allows certain uses to be made of copyrighted work without permission or payment—uses like news reporting, parody and others—uses that Congress and the courts have determined are either protected by the First Amendment, do not harm the market for the original work, or some combination of both. So I am guessing that OT will be fine.Report
Actually, parody is much more sharply constrained than you might think.Report
Oh, and it looks like Hillary has trademarked her logo: http://www.erikpelton.com/2015/04/22/hillary-clinton-campaign-files-to-protect-trademarks/Report
Zic, I’m not sure where your getting this “you have to enforce your rights against all infringers” or you lose your rights. Im confident you are wrong though. If that was the case, it would be akin to infringers having an affirmative defense that only required a showing that others also infringed but were not sued. That is simply not the case.
And yes, “failing to enforce, plus generification” can lead to lose of a trademark, but the generification part is doing all the work there.Report
And of course i don’t mean to say its good business to not protect your marks. You should protect them. But use it or lose it simply doesn’t apply here.Report
As for me as a sometime political commenter, I love the fact that they chose the candidate’s first name followed by the exclamation point.
No longer need I confine the dry sarcasm of the exclamation point to the now-forgotten campaigns of Rudy! Giuliani and Lamar! Alexander.Report
I suspect they hope that if they don’t mention his last name, people won’t associate him with his brother, W!Report