Fri, 05 May 2006

'West Point' Off Limits to Anti-War Alums

Apparently the government is now using trademark law to suppress speech, much as private companies have been doing for the last decade. But in this case, it's even more absurd: The United States Military Academy at West Point is publicly funded (i.e. by tax dollars). Furthermore, the name of the organization that the Army objects to is "West Point Graduates Against the War". It's open only to West Point graduates. What are they supposed to call themselves? "United States Military Academy Graduates Against the War"? That's probably trademarked, too.

OK, how about "Former United States Army Officers with Professional Training Against the War"? Oops - "United States Army" - trademarked!

If they really want the government to quit bitching, they should try "West Point Graduates For the War". There'd be no objection then, I'm certain.

This isn't about the war in Iraq: this is about the war currently being fought in the Courts and in Congress. This is about using intellectual property law to stifle competition.

AP - The Army warned an anti-war group of former U.S. Military Academy cadets to stop using the words "West Point" in its name, saying they are trademarked.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

/Copywrongs | 0 writebacks | permanent link

comment...

 
Notes: If you put a <mailto:> link in the URL field your address will not be mangled: this could be a bad idea as your email address could be easily harvested by bots designed for SPAM. The comments field should now format correctly for line feeds and carriage returns: when you hit the 'Enter' or 'Return' keys in your comment it should break to a new line. The text should wrap cleanly. Please let me know if it doesn't. No HTML tags will pass through - entering links seems to be the main cause of comment SPAM. Also, please be sure that Javascript is enabled in your browser before attempting to post a writeback. Sorry for any inconvenience, but this really helps cut down on the amount of comment SPAM I have to deal with.
 
 Name:
 URL:(optional)
 Title: (optional)
 Comments:  
Save my Name and URL/Email for next time