Shame on the American Red CrossJohnson & Johnson is suing the American Red Cross:
Johnson & Johnson, of course, is an evil corporation and charter member of Big Pharma — a profiteer on the sicknesses of children and the elderly. <hiss> Oh, hang on, they're also enforcing their trademark:
If this is accurate, the American Red Cross is obviously and wholly in the wrong and they deserve to have their ass handed to them (with a Band-Aid® on it). The only thing that's "obscene" here is the spectacle of Mark Everson trying to claim that trademark violation is okay when it's for a good cause. I wonder if he's ever told his children (assuming he has any) that "the ends don't justify the means". On the other hand, he used to run the IRS, so I suppose it was his job to steal from people for a good cause.
© Kyle Markley
— Posted 2007-08-12 01:43:18 UTC —
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Comments: 2
Full disclosure: I own 100 shares of J&J
Looks like J&J has the legal right to use this symbol for commercial purposes (in the US only - the red cross symbol was adopted by the forerunners to the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863), but had agreed to the American Red Cross society still using it for non-commercial purposes. I don't think the Red Cross society should try to make money from selling licence to use the symbol to J&J's competitors, BUT it appears that J&J has received a LOT of product placement promotion for free from the worldwide use of the red cross symbol in relation to first aid and disaster relief. Apparently the American Red Cross society has only made a couple of million dollars from the licence sales, so I would guess that the 'private negotiations' between J&J and the American Red Cross society probably broke down because J&J wasn't willing to provide a similar amount to the Red Cross society as a donation in recognition of the free publicity it gets. As the original agreement appears to include letting the American Red Cross society use the symbol for medical charity and relief purposes, which would include fund raising, it will be interesting to see how the law suit plays out.
It would also be interesting to see what right the founder of the American Red Cross had to enter into the agreement with J&J in the first place - given that the symbol had been in world-wide use by the Internation Red Cross for more than a quarter century before that agreement...
J&J would also want to be a bit cautious about winning the battel but losing the war - if it ended up having exclusive use of the symbol in the USA but not being able to continue using it elsewhere in the world on it's products.
Finally there's the issue that the Geneva Convention has some strictures against the misleading use of the symbol in times of war. Given that the US is currently in a global "War on Terror" this may mean J&J should not be using it in the USA either since 9/11...
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