
Procter and Gamble bids to trademark LOL, WTF and other acronyms - YeGoblynQueenne
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/24/procter-gamble-bids-to-trademark-lol-wtf-and-other-acronyms
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olavk
I was ready to become enraged, but the article mostly mentions a range of
_failed_ attempts by businesses to trademark common phrases. Then it does say
_Paris Hilton owns the words “that’s hot”_ \- but googling a bit it seems like
she successfully sued Hallmark for _using a picture of her_ on greeting card
together with the phrase. Reasonable or not, this is a far cry from saying she
owns the words in themselves.

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krsdcbl
This reminds me of a "naming contest" in the early social media days held by
German manufacturers of the brand "Pril", a dish soap, where consumers where
invited to submit and vote on custom designs for the plastic bottles.

The contest ended up seeing only meme-faces in the top results, and #1 being a
flat brown etiquette with the mouse-written slogan "tastes yummy like chicken"
[1]

I had always seen it as an example of marketing gone wrong, but reading that
article gives me a kind of idiocracy-ish deja-vu ...

[1]: [https://www.handelskraft.de/wp-
content/uploads/2012/09/pril-...](https://www.handelskraft.de/wp-
content/uploads/2012/09/pril-schmeckt-lecker-nach-hahnchen.jpg)

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CM30
It's like the Sony Let's Play thing all over again.

Honestly though, I do have to wonder why anyone can trademark common phrases
at all. Why not just accept common usage means prior art and they're
automatically deemed invalid? Like with the invalidated patents being applied
for again thing it makes you wonder who the hell even likes this system.

Honestly, at least one political party should make it a policy to rip up most
existing IP laws and rewrite them to be sane again. Just ignore the lobbying,
ignore the corporations and go back to step 1.

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jamesgagan
WTF???

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fish44
LOL FML Chanel tried to copyright the word “jersey” it’s no coincidence that
it’s one of the Chanel island...

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olavk
It is not possible to copyright a word.

