TM owners being Jippii-ed?

Reading the news piece on Jippii (MW March 22), it made me wonder how companies like this (and many others) can get away with selling registered trademarks and tunes, which they presumably have no licence for, as downloads. Certainly Napster has had to manoeuvre through the courts to avoid the music publishers’ wrath, and companies such as Disney and Coca-Cola have a reputation for relentlessness in their pursuit of companies that use their trademarks without authority.

There has been no coverage of this issue: it’s as if it didn’t exist. As a trademark owner, Kawasaki has taken advice, but even the lawyers don’t know what to make of it. Can we assume that there has been no action by the big guns because they don’t know what to do either?

There has to be a case. These companies are selling, for profit, other organisations’ property. The fact that they are starting to advertise in the tabloids presumably indicates that they are making money in the process, unmolested by the trademark owners. Am I missing something?

Simon Belton

Kawasaki Motors