[ZTWsquared]

NOS2Go4Me,Dec 11 2008, 08:26 AM Wrote:Yeah, I read up on this story some more over at Escape-Central.com. It's about selling unlicensed merchandise. If Puppet was to start selling site-backed Focus merch, he'd be in a lot of trouble. Same if he had a deal to submit royalties on sales and didn't.

FocusCanada.net merchandise is one thing, Ford Focus merchandise is another. That's what's going on here.
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^^QFT - and let's be clear - Ford hasn't sued anyone - they've only sent what is basically a cease and desist letter - ie: "stop or we'll sue."

You have to put this into the perspective of the trademark environment in the USA ... there have been a number of trademark infringement rulings in the US over the past years that basically says that if a company doesn't actively protect its trademarks, it can lose them ... so in a sense a company is forced to send cease and desist letters because if they don't they may lose the trademark alltogether.

IIRC the intent was to prevent someone from simply trademarking all kinds of stuff and then sitting on them and not actually producing something ... so in a way the rulings are being perverted - because obviously Ford wouldn't be at risk of losing its trademarks due to inactivitiy -- so this probably falls into the 'better safe than sorry' category.

Bottom line: if you want to sell merchandise that has any kind of Ford logo on it, you have to pay Ford for the rights to do so ... and with all the Ford crap out there you know Ford is willing to play ball if asked.