Thanks, Robin, for that fascinating information. What a convoluted history the logo has! Thanks for your wonderful book too!
--- On Thu, 9/25/08, Robin Rolfs <nipper at dataex.com> wrote: From: Robin Rolfs <nip...@dataex.com> Subject: [Phono-L] Rights to HMV To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l at oldcrank.org> Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 12:28 PM Greetings, We recently wrote a book on Nipper Collectibles and the history of the Nipper Trademark, which we hope every collector has added to their library. In short, Nipper and the "His Master's Voice" along with RCA, once the most powerful trademarks in the world have dissipated into the foreign graveyard of cast-off and near forgotten trademarks. Here are our summarized findings: "RCA" is nothing more than a trademark. Once acquired by General Electric in 1986, it RCA Records to Bertelsmann A.G. A year later, both RCA and GE Consumer Electronics businesses were sold to the French firm, Thomson SA, while GE retained RCA's NBC broadcasting interests. In 1988, Thomson Consumer Electronics was formed and later renamed Thomson Multimedia in 1995, and in 2002 was again renamed Thomson SA. Thomson bought the "His Master's Voice" trademark from GE in 2003 and transferred it to RCA Trademark Management SA in France. One year later, Thomson entered into a joint venture with TCL Corporation, a large electronics manufacturing company in southern China. TCL has acquired all the manufacturing rights to RCA brand televisions. The last of the Thomson line of RCA consumer electronics was recently purchased by Audiovox. Meanwhile, RCA Records is now part of Sony BMG Music Group. RCA Laboratories has been transferred to SRI International and renamed Sarnoff Corporation. RCA Aerospace & Defense combined with GE Aerospace, only to be sold to Martin Marietta in 1993 which soon merged with Lockheed Corporation. In the spring of 1997, Lockheed Martin Communications Systems, Camden, NJ was renamed L-3 Communication Corp. England still retains the rights to use the trademark logo and name for their "HMV" stores. China, who indirectly obtained the logo from the U.S. through Thomson can only use it on products sold in China. Likewise, in Japan, JVC founded in 1927 as "The Victor Company of Japan," now owned by Matsushita, can use the HMV logo only on products sold in Japan. Because of territorial licensing, Nipper can no longer be used as a tool in the global marketing and identification of a product. Since the trademark can legitimately only be used only for products sold in the country of origin, it is doubtful that it will ever show up on products intended to be sold internationally. Since no single entity "owns" the trademark, its use for other purposes (collectibles, nick-knacks, T-shirts, crap-o-phones) goes unchallenged. Robin & Joan Rolfs Visit us at: www.audioantique.com _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.oldcrank.org