Re: Re: OCLC Suit Against the Library Hotel

I (on the contrary) have no sympathy with OCLC. According to the Jones Day attorney who filed the complaint, this suit is not about money, OCLC only wanted a written recognition that it has rights in the mark. (i) Why is OCLC spending litigation money over hurt feelings? or bad manners? I prefer money to be spent on the core goal of OCLC-- interlibrary loan services.
(ii) The so called mark existed long before OCLC and memorializes work done by Melville Dewey (very dead). If OCLC wins, the suit will strengthen the already much too high protection of 'marks' which (in practice) raise transaction costs for many truthful statements (like the Dewey Decimal number set for e.g. history in this law suit). (iii) The OCLC web site asserts that it has a duty to protect its trademarks. The law actually is that if OCLC takes no action against one type of infringement, its "rights" may be hard to protect against other similar infringements. Since the Hotel is doing nothing confusing and nothing that undercuts the interests of OCLC in its library assisting functions, all OCLC is placing in jeopardy by not suing are other over reaching suits down the road. PS I hold both a JD and Masters in Library Science.
Malla Pollack
Visiting, Univ. of Oregon, Law
541-346-1599
mpollack[_at_]law.uoregon.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry Carroll" <carroll[_at_]tjc.com>
To: "CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property" <CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 1:01 PM Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: OCLC Suit Against the Library Hotel

> I can't find myself getting too upset about this suit.
>
> OCLC has a trademark in "Dewey Decimal System." As with all trademarks,
> if the phrase is allowed by its trademark owner to be used generically,
> the phrase will cease to be a trademark.
>
> The Library Hotel is using the mark, in commerce, without acknowledging
> that it is a mark, and refuses to make such acknowledgment. According to
> the OCLC web site, their first several attempts at resolving the issue was
> simply asking for the Hotel to acknowledge that the mark was an OCLC mark.
> The hotel refused to do so. Only then did they file suit.
>
> If the OCLC fails to take steps to protect the mark, the mark will cease
> to be a mark. Then anyone can use the mark to designate anything. A
> publisher of some given collection could claim that its collection is
> organized according to the DDS, when in fact it is not, for example. This
> causes the DDS itself to be just a vague idea of an organizational scheme,
> rather than the detailed taxonomy that it is.
>
> That would be a bad result. I can't get too upset about the OCLC filing
> suit to prevent it; and if the OCLC's web site is to be believed, it's
> hard to feel too much sympathy for a hotel not willing to acknowledge the
> existence of the mark.
>
> --
> Terry Carroll
> Santa Clara, CA
> carroll[_at_]tjc.com
>
>
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Received on Tue Sep 30 2003 - 19:51:29 GMT