Talk:Trademark

missing “third” in oldest

Currently says: “United States: there are at least three claims:” But only 2 are cited (Averill and Samson). 120.16.204.25 (talk) 10:08, 11 June 2018 (UTC)MBG

Agreed. I am changing to two. GrindtXX (talk) 12:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Good edit; but I would be unsurprised if a third claim had been deleted somewhere along the way. Currently we have 1) the oldest registration, but under an act later found to be invalid as unconstitutional (thereby calling its legitimacy as a registration into question); and 2) the oldest registration still in use today. I would expect there to have been an entry for the first registration under a constitutional act, regardless of whether it is still in use. I bet it was there and removed some time ago. TJRC (talk) 14:15, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I would have lost that bet. The "third claim" was the Edgar Rice Burroughs registration of his "Tarzan" mark: [1]. But that was in 1923, far too late to have been the first registration under a constitutional act (which was enacted in 1881). The mark is rather elderly, but is in no way in the running to be "oldest" under any definition. The "Tarzan" text now resides in the "Comparison with patents, designs and copyright" section, but it looks like when it was moved out, the "three" was not updated to "two"; GrindtXX's edit today fixes that.

Of course, now I'm wondering what the first registration under a constitutional act was. TJRC (talk) 16:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Obligation of enforcement?

The text currently claims: “A trademark owner doesn't need to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential.” Implicitly, this seems to implies that if the infringement is not minor, then the trademark owner is under obligation to sue the infringing party. Is that right? I find this strange. I have added a “citation needed” tag. Jean Abou Samra (talk) 19:17, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Fundamental concepts

The first paragraph of the "Fundamental concepts" declare that the trademarks indicates the origin of the goods. This was never correct, for example, when I buy a shirt with a polo player logo on it, it has not been made by Ralph Lauren Corporation somewhere in the US; it was most likely manufactured for the said corporation somewhere in East Asia. There are many marks related to trade, these are not all trademarks. A reference is needed, most likely the text will have to be changed. Викидим (talk) 10:32, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

No, you're clearly wrong on that point. There are sources on this but I don't have half an hour to prepare full citations right now. This source stresses that identity of origin is at the core of European trademark law. This source explains why the term "badge of origin" is so confusing because of how registered marks can be transferred or licensed in certain ways so that a mark may no longer literally identify the holder of the mark as the actual origin of the goods. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:23, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, historically the trademarks evolved from the maker's marks (or a factory mark). No, AFAIK, their meaning has changed since, as your source acknowledges, "may in fact communicate very little about the origin of goods". Compare this to our text, "The essential function of a trademark is to exclusively identify the source or origin of products or services" (italics are mine). The particular polo shirt has a Ralph Lauren (RL) logo on it (registered to a US corporation), but it had been made in Vietnam on a no-name factory that probably simply has a contract with RL to produce these shirts. The "Usage" section gets it right: "A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service". Consumer brand owner in the modern world rarely has anything in common with the actual manufacturer. Викидим (talk) 17:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Adding Trademark Bob AI to the list of available online trademark search tools

The site www.trademarkbob.ai is an online trademark search tool like the others mentioned on the Trademark page (LexisNexis, Dialog, CompuMark, and Corsearch). I think that it is appropriate for it to be listed with the other trademark search tools mentioned on the page. Bjwalz (talk) 20:56, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a link directory, this isn't a place to add links or mentions of your search tool. MrOllie (talk) 20:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)