Trademark

I was just reading a this post on the Boing Boing site, and it had a sentence that I found interesting for the Levi Strauss trademark drama.

"Trademark does not protect owners from others profiting on their marks --
trademark's purpose is to prevent vendors from misleading the public about the
origin of goods and services. If you use someone else's trademark ... you're totally in the clear, provided that the purchaser doesn't get confused about whose product he's buying."

IANAL but from that, it sounds like many of our favourite jeans could have arcuates and tabs?

Litigious Levis

For the Japanese denim fans who are angry about the legal proceeding by Levis, here is a quote from the James Sullivan book (page 30):

"In its first year of manufacturing the company [Levi Strauss] sued two
rivals, San Francisco's A. B. Elfelt and San Jose's Kan Lun, for patent
infringement."

So, it's nothing new.

Levis Trademark Gimmicks

Apparently Levis are cracking down on the Japanese denim manufacturers who have been creating jeans with the following features that Levis own the trademark for:

1. Patch with two creatures trying to pull a pair of jeans apart.
2. Sewn arcuate pattern on the back pockets.
3. Label tab sewn under the back pocket.

I don't know all the details. There's a busy thread on superdenim, but it has more hearsay and speculation than facts.

I don't want to write a big rant about Levis' legal action, so my quick thoughts are:

• These three features are GIMMICKS.
• This will be good for the Japanese in the long term. The sooner the Japanese brands get past worshipping the old Levis the better. They've already surpassed the originals.