Thread: Beyond bogus
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Old 04-16-18 | 05:01 PM
  #28  
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kbarch
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Originally Posted by njkayaker
Acqua & Sapone might have reasons not to have team kit currently. If they own the trademark, they have a right to control how it's used.

You are suggesting that not only do they not have such a right, they owe people for using it in a way they don't choose how it is used.

Coca Cola used to be made with cocaine. I doubt the current company would be happy to pay people to "generate interest" in other people promoting that association.
That's certainly a possibility, and an important consideration, but pretty unlikely, and possibly irrelevant. They'd need to make a case that their reputation was damaged as a result. In any event, the team kit design isn't about A&S the drugstores, and I doubt the design of the kit belonged to the one sponsor; it's about bike racing and surely belonged to the team. When A&S backed out of sponsoring, was the design of the team kit assigned to them? Maybe, maybe not.

Seems to me the presence of their branding is just an incidental - like product placement in a movie - they can't complain if later on the movie is revived and becomes a cult classic that they don't want to be associated with. In this case, their branding, as an element of another larger design and concept, it's not really a new use or expression, or, to that extent, one that they didn't authorize anyhow. If the larger design of which it is only a part has taken on a life of it's own, there really doesn't seem to be much A&S could do about it.

I really think the manufacturer is the only one who could still have much of a claim, since they made the thing in its entirety, but again, if their original market was the team exclusively, then no one could possibly infringe on that.
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