Billionaire Elon Musk's decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be complicated legally: companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter.
The Olympics did send a cease and desist to Olympic Provisions (a salami maker in Portland, Oregon). So they had to change their name to Olympia Provisions. Perhaps the Olympics felt threatened since people often confuse ‘finocchiona salami’ with ‘finishing a giant slalom’.
My vet clinic I work at was contacted by Red Cross some years ago damanding that we change our logo becuase it had a red plus sign in it. It was the most ridiculous thing. How did they even find out about us? we are no big time clinic, only people in our city are going to know who we are. We had that logo for a long, long time. It was just bizarre.
That’s what we had thought too. Also the fact that it was a really generic looking red plus sign. How can someone trademark a symbol used by everyone? I guess if it wasn’t red, it would have been fine. There was a lot of scoffing going on in clinic.
You would think that, but no. It’s specifically the Red Cross organization. Which is an international organization.
It can also be used by militaries and such for Geneva Convention complaint medical use, such as search and rescue operations or medical centers and such.
That’s it. Those are the only legally allowed uses. And even Geneva Convention complaint medical use is often run by the international organization.
Nope. There’s a reason they go after video games that use the red cross symbol for health packs, that dilutes the meaning of what the red cross stands for.
I don’t think Red Cross is going off trademark law; using the Red Cross for anything but the Red Cross (same for the Red Crescent and Red Crystal) is a violation of international law (i.e. the Geneva Convention)
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The Olympics did send a cease and desist to Olympic Provisions (a salami maker in Portland, Oregon). So they had to change their name to Olympia Provisions. Perhaps the Olympics felt threatened since people often confuse ‘finocchiona salami’ with ‘finishing a giant slalom’.
My vet clinic I work at was contacted by Red Cross some years ago damanding that we change our logo becuase it had a red plus sign in it. It was the most ridiculous thing. How did they even find out about us? we are no big time clinic, only people in our city are going to know who we are. We had that logo for a long, long time. It was just bizarre.
Isn’t that a common symbol for all medical related things?
That’s what we had thought too. Also the fact that it was a really generic looking red plus sign. How can someone trademark a symbol used by everyone? I guess if it wasn’t red, it would have been fine. There was a lot of scoffing going on in clinic.
You would think that, but no. It’s specifically the Red Cross organization. Which is an international organization.
It can also be used by militaries and such for Geneva Convention complaint medical use, such as search and rescue operations or medical centers and such.
That’s it. Those are the only legally allowed uses. And even Geneva Convention complaint medical use is often run by the international organization.
Nope. There’s a reason they go after video games that use the red cross symbol for health packs, that dilutes the meaning of what the red cross stands for.
I don’t think Red Cross is going off trademark law; using the Red Cross for anything but the Red Cross (same for the Red Crescent and Red Crystal) is a violation of international law (i.e. the Geneva Convention)
Doesn’t necessarily mean the Olympics were in their right.
More likely that the salami maker wanted to avoid / could not afford a legal battle.
Yeah I should have also mentioned that that doesn’t prevent companies from trying that kind of bullshit.
Which is somewhat BS, since we have a perfectly good Olympic Peninsula here in Washington State that it was certainly named after.