trademark v

[Jonathan Lighter]

> "We certainly would not request a trademark on a SEAL team that doesn't
exist, like SEAL Team 6," said a Navy official.

The Navy obviously doesn't have a clue about trademarks and marketing.

JL


On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:29 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: trademark v
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Look at the date: May 13, 2011. Disney backed away REAL fast once the Navy
> cleared its throat. *Wall St. Journal*, May 26, 2011 (click headline for
> full story):
> Walt Disney Surrenders to Navy's SEAL Team 6 <http://on.wsj.com/mRGiv7>
> Less than a month after a daring raid on Osama bin Laden's secret hideout,
> the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team 6 notched a victory over the Magic Kingdom.
>
> Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday that it would pull an application with the
> U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in which the entertainment giant sought
> the exclusive right to use the term "SEAL Team 6" on items ranging from
> toys and games to snow globes and Christmas stockings.
>
> Disney withdrew the application "out of deference to the Navy," a spokesman
> said.
>
> The move comes after comics and other critics ridiculed the Burbank,
> Calif., company for trying to profit off bin Laden's killing. Disney first
> made the claim two days after the world learned of the secret
> special-operations unit's daring mission into the al Qaeda leader's
> Pakistan compound.
>
> "Putting a trademark on SEAL Team 6 is like copyrighting 'The guys who
> stormed the beach at Normandy,'" joked "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart
> last week. "It belongs to all of us."
>
> Navy officers privately expressed relief Wednesday that the company had
> chosen voluntarily to retract its application, saving the organization from
> a long trademark battle.
>
> But the best part is at the end of the article:
>
> Cmdr. Hernandez, the Navy spokesman, said its May 13 application wasn't a
> direct response to the Disney filing, but rather an effort to establish
> that the existing Navy trademark was broader than simply the word SEAL.
>
> "The request for Navy SEALs and SEAL Team was to broaden our existing
> portfolio," Cmdr. Hernandez said.
>
> Yet Navy officials didn't file a request for "SEAL Team Six."
>
> The Navy confirms the existence of SEAL Teams 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10.
> The Navy has never acknowledged the existence of Team 9 while SEAL Team 6,
> the service's most elite hunter-killer team, is officially called the
> United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DevGru.
>
> Unofficially, DevGru is widely known as SEAL Team 6.
>
> "We certainly would not request a trademark on a SEAL team that doesn't
> exist, like SEAL Team 6," said a Navy official.
>
> Mark Mandel
>
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com
> >wrot=
> e:
>
> > The OED has a very brief description of "trademark" as a verb, with no
> > examples:
> >
> > > =CB=88trade-=CB=8Cmark v. (/trans./) to affix or imprint a trade-mark
> u=
> pon.
> >
> > This seems a bit narrow, unless "affix" is treated quite generously. In
> > fact, current usage suggests that "to trademark" means to either apply
> > for trademark registration and protection or to make something famous
> > and exclusive (the latter in a somewhat transformative sense). An easy
> > search for the former includes "going to trademark" string, which
> > produces 70800 raw ghits.
> >
> >
> > http://goo.gl/qfLxA
> > > Is Disney really going to trademark "SEAL Team 6"?
> > > ...
> > > In a perfect example of a big media company looking to capitalize on
> > > current events, the Walt Disney Company has trademarked Seal Team 6,
> > > which happens to be the name of the elite special forces team that
> > > killed Osama bin Laden.
> >
> >
> > http://goo.gl/0WR06
> > > Disney Trademarks "Seal Team 6"
> > > By Alex Weprin on May 13, 2011 4:25 PM
> > >
> > > In a textbook example of how big media company look to capitalize on
> > > current events, The Walt Disney Company has trademarked "Seal Team 6,"
> > > which also happens to be the name of the elite special forces team
> > > that killed Osama Bin Laden.
> > >
> > > The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the
> > > operation that killed Bin Laden... and two days after "Seal Team 6"
> > > was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on
> > > the operation.
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org