Big bullies

[redhippo]

from wikipedia:

One principle of trademark law in various jurisdictions in Europe is that of 'wrongful threats', which is designed to prevent large corporations from 'bullying' smaller companies. Where one person makes a threat to sue another for trade mark infringement, without a genuine basis or intent to carry out that threat, the threat itself becomes a basis for legal action. This power is used quite frequently; in addition to the obvious cases where the person threatening never had a trade mark it catches out foreign corporations who have a trade mark in their home jurisdiction but not in the country concerned and companies who have a trade mark which has lapsed or, if the mark is not strong enough for dilution protection, is not for the goods/services concerned. The final group who get caught by this provision are those claimants/plaintiffs who sue, and find that the court agrees with a defendant who claims the that mark is invalid for some reason (such as non-use). In that case the mark was never valid, and thus all threats to sue on it were groundless—the defendant can walk away with damages from the claimant.

for more details read it here

 

[hookah]

Well, I remember how I was deeply astonished reading that Jupitermedia sued some australian firm to WIPO for registering and using 'internet.com.au' arguing that the name is confusingly similiar to 'internet.com' belonging to Jupitermedia. That's fantastic!

Aha, Jupitermedia lost the battle