G'day Pen-pals,
I see the Australian Institute of Management have felt the slings and arrows
of US jurisdiction without having to buy a plane ticket. They've just
listed a 20-year-old course called 'Effective Negotiation Skills' on their
web site. And now it's gone. A US training group called Karrass has
claimed 'effective negotiation' (and permutations of that with a couple of
likely other millenium-old ordinary words, like 'advanced' and 'sales') as
its trademarks, and AIM had either to defend itself in an American court or
cut its losses. It chose wisely. AIM are cross, because Australians are
not nearly as looney as Yanks, and, in Australia, purely descriptive words
do not a trademark make.
Another notch for the barking behemoth, then. The internet is effectively
under US jurisdiction, and the language is being enclosed word-by-word.
Glad I've my Dutch to fall back on.
(For those keeping an eye on these things, it's all in the February 4
(Australian) Business Review Weekly).
There's a bright side for we pedagogues, I s'pose. It usually takes ages to
define and explain to the first-years such terms as 'commoditisation',
'enclosure of the commons' and 'wall-biting fucking mad'. And to
distinguish between 'globalism' and 'imperialism'. It should be easier now
...
And should we band together and buy the trademark on 'ceterus paribus',
'supply' and 'demand'? 95% of the world's economists consigned to life-long
silence - and all by 'market forces'. Luvverly.
Cheers,
Rob
