September 14, 2014
I noticed that links to it started showing up on TokyoToshokan. There's probably a story behind all this but I doubt we'll ever learn what it was.
On to other things: Is Sherlock Holmes trademarked? The stories are out of copyright now, but trademarks don't expire as long as they're properly defended. Reason I ask is that the next "Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney" game is going to feature Sherlock Holmes.
And Watson: Iris Watson, 8 years old, supergenius with a Ph.D. in medicine and author of a series of books and articles about Holmes. She has pink drill twintails and looks like a refugee from steampunk.
Apparently it is normal for there to be cute underage girls hanging around in this series for no obvious reason.
Perhaps I should say "common" instead of "normal"...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at
12:00 PM
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Post contains 136 words, total size 1 kb.
Posted by: mp122984 at September 14, 2014 03:09 PM (M63x0)
Posted by: mp122984 at September 14, 2014 03:46 PM (M63x0)
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 14, 2014 04:38 PM (RqRa5)
I think that it's probably too late for the Doyle estate to gain trademarks on Holmes et. al. And if they did have them, arguably they've lost them by now because they weren't vigorously defending them.
And once you've lost a trademark, it's gone forever.
Example: A lot of people don't know that "Aspirin" used to be a trademark of the Bayer corporation. In the US it lapsed into generic use and Bayer lost control of it. But in Canada and Europe, if you buy "aspirin", it will be Bayer. Everyone else's product has to have a different name.
Kimberly Clark almost lost control of "Kleenex". The Xerox corporation almost lost control of "Xerox" (which in common use was a synonym for "photocopy"). CocaCola was perilously close to losing control of "Coke", which is why they clamped down in the 1970's, and why if you order "a coke" in some places you'll get asked, "Is Pepsi OK?"
I would venture to guess that 99 times out of 100 the customer says "Yes". As a practical matter CocaCola really should have lost control over "Coke", but I guess they caught onto the peril soon enough and avoided that fate.
Trademark law is a real black art.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 14, 2014 05:50 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: Ben at September 15, 2014 06:15 AM (S4UJw)
At the same time, clearly Disney does use the Mouse in the sense that we'd expect a trademark to be used, as a general company mascot, so it's not clear that the moment it expires, you could immediately start flogging Mickey plushies without Disney's involvement.
This sort of thing is why lawyers can demand so much money - you get areas of the law where the real answer is "it's the way you want it, if your lawyer is better than their lawyer".
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 15, 2014 10:53 AM (ZeBdf)
"Corian" was close to going the same way, but DuPont learned from Formica Corps. labors.
Posted by: topmaker at September 15, 2014 02:50 PM (2yZsg)
Enclose all spoilers in spoiler tags:
[spoiler]your spoiler here[/spoiler]
Spoilers which are not properly tagged will be ruthlessly deleted on sight.
Also, I hate unsolicited suggestions and advice. (Even when you think you're being funny.)
At Chizumatic, we take pride in being incomplete, incorrect, inconsistent, and unfair. We do all of them deliberately.
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