Trade Mark Cartoons ‘for Life®’
| DOI | 10.1093/jiplp/jpm093 |
| Date | 25 May 2007 |
| Pages | 492-493 |
| Year | 2007 |
| Published By | Oxford University Press |
IP in Review
Trade mark cartoons ‘FOR LIFE
w
’
Philippe de Jong*
Trademarks
By WIPO and INDECOPI,
2000, Lima
Price: free, ISBN: 92-805-0962-4 (English version).
pp. 12 (in English, French, and Spanish)
Writing a book review has never been more entertaining.
The ‘book’ under review is a 12 page trilingual
(English, French, and Spanish) comic book compiled and
co-published by WIPO and the National Institute for the
Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual
Property (INDECOPI). Through the eyes of a couple of
children, this cartoon briefly explains the dominant role
of trade marks in our every day lives. Despite its rather
insubstantial size, this cartoon has caught our attention.
It is rare for information on trade marks to be produced
for a wider audience. Apart from being rare, it is also
praiseworthy. For these reasons alone, this publication
deserves credit and merits some—critical—review. Allow
me to first explain what the story is actually about.
The cartoon starts off with three youngsters, called
Marco, Ping Pong, and Babi, strolling down a street in a
cheerful (undisclosed) city filled with neat shops, some of
which have rather unimaginative names, such as the Blue
Diamond jeweller, the Rose Boutique flower shop, and
the Las Vegas cinema. They are awaiting the return of
their friend Chuli, who has gone off looking for infor-
mation about trade marks at the Trademark Office. The
four friends have decided to create their own trade mark
for T-shirts, which they believe must become so unique
so as to compete with existing famous brands.
Upon Chuli’s return, she explains to her friends what
she has discovered: that a trade mark is a sign that ident-
ifies a person’s or company’s products from those of
others so as to avoid confusion; that there are suggestive
or evocative, arbitrary, and fanciful trade marks and that
owning a trade mark has a lot of advantages because of
its identification and advertising function, its ability to
become well-known and thus to increase its own value.
During their conversation, they discuss a wide array of
future events. For instance, Ping Pong wonders what
would happen if someone started using their mark for
caramels. Chuli explains to him that this is allowed
because caramels are completely different from T-shirts.
In addition, they anticipate the risk of their mark being
infringed by a ‘swindler’ called Tricky Ricky who has the
unfortunate reputation of shamelessly copying well-
known trade marks and passing his products off as if
they were originals. They rest assured once they realize
that effective enforcement mechanisms exist: if a counter-
feiter copies their trade mark, he will be reported to
the authorities and the counterfeit products will be
confiscated.
Subsequently, three pages go by in considering all poss-
ible trade marks. First, they think of ‘Bamachupin’, a con-
traction of Babi, Marco, Chuli, and Ping Pong, but this is
dismissed because Babi thinks it sounds like a drug. Then
Babi comes up with ‘Riboc’, but soon rejects it after vigor-
ous criticism from her friends that this would amount to
an infringement of the well-known ‘Reebok’ mark.
Finally, the suggestion to register Chuli’s own name as a
trade mark is heavily refuted by Chuli herself, because ‘it’s
my name, it’s like my trademark, I own it, and I won’t let
you use it’! In the end, they all decide to go for ‘FOR
LIFEw’, written in green capital letters, except for the
letter L, which is in blue.
They run off to the Trademark Office and hand over
their written application to a nice lady who informs them
that the application will now be published so that other
people, who may object to their trade mark, can oppose
it. Luckily the comic book does not cover the situation
where an opposition is actually filed, probably because
this would have doubled the size of the booklet. Instead,
it takes a step forward in time and on the last page, the
foursome are seen to be reaping the benefits of their hard
work: ‘FOR LIFEw’ has gained a reputation and appears
to have brought in a lot of money. The last frame depicts
the characters collectively shouting out ‘WE’RE ALL
CASHING IN!’
‘A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to
read it all through?’ (Samuel Johnson)
This section is dedicated to the review of ideas, articles, books, films and other media. It will
include replies (and rejoinders) to articles, the evaluation of new ideas or proposals, and
reviews of books and articles both directly and indirectly related to intellectual property law.
* Altius,Brussels
492 Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 2007, Vol. 2, No. 7
#The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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