Michael Sondow writes:
> What about protection of non-U.S. based companies, particularly
> those engaged in international trade? Or simply small companies
> worldwide? We have an immediate instance of this problem in the
> Porsche case, where small, independent dealers or services or
> clubs are being asked to give up the use of the name of the
> product they're servicing or selling, so that only the
> manufacturer - and in this case, only the country where the
> main office of the manufacturer is located - can use the name.
>
> Will there, then, be no independent dealers or providers of
> services? Will the trademark problem force the creation of
> ever-wider multi-nationalisation? This is diametrically opposed to
> free trade and free markets. Trademarked brand names can't be
> allowed to be used as a pretext for global monopolization. If this
> is the future of the Internet, then it would be better if the
> Internet didn't exist.
Better still if this is the way this "Internet" is
going it may be better to supplant it with another
one. Remember it came out of relatively nowhere and
it may one day return to obscurity. Hastened by such
hairbrained application of Corporatist Trademark
lobbies. If so the sooner it fails the better. And
all this Internet mania frothing and gushing aside,
we will be happier and healthier without the darned
flawed and cumbersome thingee after all.
Bob Allisat
Free Community Network _ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://fcn.net _ http://fcn.net/allisat
http://robin.fcn.net
