Paraguay Loves Its Cartoon Mouse Mickey. Disney Does Not (msn.com) 48
The New York Times looks at "a third-generation family firm" in Paraguay "with 280 workers that packages hot sauce, soy beans...and seven kinds of salt for sale in Paraguayan supermarkets."
Its mascot — on t-shirts, coffee cups, and "in heavy demand at Paraguayan weddings" — is a mouse named Mickey. 51-year-old Viviana Blasco — one of five siblings who run the business — told the Times that it all began back in 1935: Ms. Blasco's grandfather, Pascual, the son of Italian immigrants, saw an opportunity to spread some joy — and turn a profit. He opened a tiny shop selling fruit and homemade gelato. It was called Mickey... Pascual, she said, often vacationed in Buenos Aires — Argentina's cosmopolitan capital... "On one of his trips, he must have seen the famous mouse," Ms. Blasco said... A few years later, Pascual opened the Mickey Ice Cream Parlor, Café and Confectioners. By 1969, Mickey was selling rice, sugar and baking soda in packages now decorated with the eponymous mouse.
"Mickey resonates with Paraguayans' sense of nostalgia, said Euge Aquino, a TV chef and social media influencer who uses its ingredients to make comfort food like pastel mandi'o (yuca and beef empanadas)... Mickey's popularity, she said, also has a lot to do with the mascot handing out candy outside the factory gates every Christmas: a tradition dating back to 1983." By now, a "peaceful coexistence" reigns between Mickey and its United States doppelgänger, said Elba Rosa Britez, 72, the smaller company's lawyer. This truce was hard-won. In 1991, Disney filed a trademark violation claim with Paraguay's Ministry of Business and Industry that was rejected. The company then filed a lawsuit, but in 1995 a trademark tribunal ruled in Mickey's favor. There, one judge agreed that Paraguayans could easily confuse the Disney Mickey and the Paraguayan Mickey. But Disney didn't reckon on a "legal loophole," Ms Britez explained. The Mickey trademark had been registered in Paraguay since at least 1956 — and Pascual's descendants had since renewed it — without protest from the multinational. In 1998, Paraguay's Supreme Court issued its final ruling. Through decades of uninterrupted use, Mickey had acquired the right to be Mickey.
"I jumped for joy," Ms Britez said. Mickey's legal immunity in Paraguay, Ms. Blasco acknowledged, might not extend to selling its products abroad. "We've never tried."
"Some lining up to meet the mascot said Mickey's David-vs-Goliath triumph against Disney filled them with national pride..."
Its mascot — on t-shirts, coffee cups, and "in heavy demand at Paraguayan weddings" — is a mouse named Mickey. 51-year-old Viviana Blasco — one of five siblings who run the business — told the Times that it all began back in 1935: Ms. Blasco's grandfather, Pascual, the son of Italian immigrants, saw an opportunity to spread some joy — and turn a profit. He opened a tiny shop selling fruit and homemade gelato. It was called Mickey... Pascual, she said, often vacationed in Buenos Aires — Argentina's cosmopolitan capital... "On one of his trips, he must have seen the famous mouse," Ms. Blasco said... A few years later, Pascual opened the Mickey Ice Cream Parlor, Café and Confectioners. By 1969, Mickey was selling rice, sugar and baking soda in packages now decorated with the eponymous mouse.
"Mickey resonates with Paraguayans' sense of nostalgia, said Euge Aquino, a TV chef and social media influencer who uses its ingredients to make comfort food like pastel mandi'o (yuca and beef empanadas)... Mickey's popularity, she said, also has a lot to do with the mascot handing out candy outside the factory gates every Christmas: a tradition dating back to 1983." By now, a "peaceful coexistence" reigns between Mickey and its United States doppelgänger, said Elba Rosa Britez, 72, the smaller company's lawyer. This truce was hard-won. In 1991, Disney filed a trademark violation claim with Paraguay's Ministry of Business and Industry that was rejected. The company then filed a lawsuit, but in 1995 a trademark tribunal ruled in Mickey's favor. There, one judge agreed that Paraguayans could easily confuse the Disney Mickey and the Paraguayan Mickey. But Disney didn't reckon on a "legal loophole," Ms Britez explained. The Mickey trademark had been registered in Paraguay since at least 1956 — and Pascual's descendants had since renewed it — without protest from the multinational. In 1998, Paraguay's Supreme Court issued its final ruling. Through decades of uninterrupted use, Mickey had acquired the right to be Mickey.
"I jumped for joy," Ms Britez said. Mickey's legal immunity in Paraguay, Ms. Blasco acknowledged, might not extend to selling its products abroad. "We've never tried."
"Some lining up to meet the mascot said Mickey's David-vs-Goliath triumph against Disney filled them with national pride..."
So . . . (Score:2)
we're calling this a Mickey Mouse court ruling? :)
hawk
So - use the Public Domain Mickey Mouse (Score:3)
Micky Mouse imagery from Steamboat Willie is in the public domain.
And you cannot use trademark law to try to enforce a de facto copyright on a public domain image.
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/... [duke.edu] "You cannot use Mickey Mouse in a way that misleads consumers into thinking your work is sponsored by Disney."
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They don't need to change though, they won the legal fight. Primarily because Disney didn't object over many years of the trademark being registered in Paraguay.
Defend the trademark or lose it; which is why so many companies act like assholes over their trademarks. In this case, Disney either didn't know about the Paraguay trademark, or was ignoring it.
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which is why so many companies act like assholes over their trademarks.
Silly question mayhap, but can you elaborate on this?
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I mean that some companies will send the cease and desist letters over very mild to nearly non-existent trademark violations. Such as using the same shade of color that the company has for their well known product, Cadbury vs Nestle (or Nestle vs Cadbury? Whatever direction it went).
Examples, Starbuck filed suit against a company that sold a "Freddccino", as it was too similar to their "Frappocino". More recently, Jack Daniels sued Bad Spaniels, a dog toy. These are things that went to court and got res
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>> "Jack Daniels sued Bad Spaniels"
A man bites dog story?
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It was a disagreement between lawyers, so likely neither man nor dog but some form of cartilaginous fish.
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which is why so many companies act like assholes over their trademarks.
Silly question mayhap, but can you elaborate on this?
In the United States, if other companies start using your trademark name as a generic term for a product (for example, if someone starts selling tissues called Bob's Kleenex), and you don't do anything to stop them, you can lose the trademark protection because you've tacitly agreed that it's now a generic term. American companies and lawyers, being American companies and lawyers, have taken this to mean that if anyone anywhere uses anything even remotely close to your trademark then you have to send letter
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Defend the trademark or lose it; which is why so many companies act like assholes over their trademarks.
That only even works to an extent. There's an issue here that Disney is a media company, and Mickey Mouse is just the brand of a film character, and not the name of a food product, and Hot sauce is a food product not a type of movie or video production.
All trademark registrations are for goods or services within a specific Industry or Field. For example you register the brand Microsoft. Your regi
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So theres a few things to remember with that expiration.
Theres generally a few types of IP involved here. Trademark ("Mickey Mouse"), Copyright ("Steamboat willy" etc) and "Trade dress", a slightly more nebulous concept but its basically mickey mouse the character.
While Steamboat willy and the art is indeed free to use under public domain, you wont be able to call any derivative works "mickey mouse" , because that is a trademark and Disney will hold that for as long as it likes. For the same reason you cant
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you wont be able to call any derivative works "mickey mouse" , because that is a trademark and Disney will hold that for as long as it likes.
Mickey Mouse may be a trademark. But the original work now public domain is titled Mickey Mouse: therefore, You would be able to use the name Mickey Mouse when distributing it, and Disney cannot do a thing about that.
For example: You can say "Based on Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willy"
This is called nominative use [wikipedia.org]. A type of trademark fair use that says trademark holder'
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Micky Mouse imagery from Steamboat Willie is in the public domain.
And you cannot use trademark law to try to enforce a de facto copyright on a public domain image.
But the Paraguayan company isn't doing anything with Steamboat Willie, either the name or the image, so that's completely irrelevant.
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1928 poster for Steamboat Willie [thehistoryblog.com]. The one-known surviving copy of this poster sold at auction [ha.com] for over $100k. So yes, the basic Mickey Mouse styling, under the name Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie was, BTW, the third Mickey Mouse cartoon; the first two couldn't find distributors) is public domain. There have been some changes since then at varying points in time, and the voice isn't public domain, but the general look is.
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Walt is spinning in his grave seeing what's become of Disney.
Why do all empires become evil?
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Empires become evil because humans are basically evil and self serving. The 'evil' you refer to is most commonly an ever increasing desire for more MONEY. From the religious perspective, it is inevitable that if a person is not worshipping a god, they will resort to worshiping themselves and want ever more sacrificed to them. Which is why most religions teach us to actively worship a deity, because that way we are less likely to drift into evil.
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while I don't disagree with you, there are ethics, which do matter
not sure about people are basically evil, but all too often people do become self-centered, which does lead to selfishness and to becoming both arrogant and greedy
I'll give you that greed / lust for power / wealth is what drives most evil
from the perspective of selflessness, selfishness looks more broken than evil but taken to its extreme, self-serving people have certainly produced more harm than almost anything else so I'd agree that people
Not a loop hole (Score:5, Informative)
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It's a common thing in almost all western trade mark law, you must defend a trade mark or lose it. Kleenex, cola, chesterfield, Aspirin, Heroin, Linoleum, Trampoline are all examples of trademarked names that have become generic. A symbol like Mickey mouse is much less common and even though the Paraguayan mouse is a copy of the Disney mouse, in Paraguay it has been used too long now for Disney to now try and defend it.
While I fully agree with you, Bayer lost aspirin [history.com]due to expring patents and trademarks because because Germany failed to win WWi.
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yeah, you can lose trademarks to common use.
also if the company sponsoring your trademark loses a world war, there uh might be problems, maybe, except nowadays there's WIPO and global IP treaties that weren't even imaginable back then.
but yeah, nazis do tend to cause problems lol.
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dammit i meant "country" not "company". sigh.
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Trademarks aren't supposed to be descriptive. If they are descriptive, that can be grounds for losing them.
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PS: The actual process of synthetizing Aspirin is somewhat more complicated, as you have first to isolate the salicylic acid from the plant and then acetylize it to acetylsalicylic acid.
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This isn't a case of "they didn't defend it." This was a case of "didn't renew it.
Defending it in this case means they failed to monitor new trademark registration notices being published in that country and file a timely opposition, so yeah that's a failure to defend the mark
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It's a common thing in almost all western trade mark law, you must defend a trade mark or lose it. Kleenex, cola, chesterfield, Aspirin, Heroin, Linoleum, Trampoline are all examples of trademarked names that have become generic.
Kleenex is still a registered, enforceable trademark in the United States.
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the primary reason the inventor of linoleum lost his trademark lawsuit is that he never registered it as a trademark (though the court did say that even if it had been registered, it had already become a generic term).
US not like Elsewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a common thing in almost all western trade mark law, you must defend a trade mark or lose it.
No, that's the case in the US, elsewhere what tends to be important is that you continue to use it, you do not have to vigorously defend it at every turn. I believe that this is why US companies are so insane about enforcing their trademarks while, in most other countries, companies are generally (though not always) a bit more sensible about it.
Re: Not a loop hole (Score:2)
Yeah, it's pretty basic stuff.
And a little thought will tell you why: if it wasn't for this part of the trademark law, a company could maliciously allow infringing use for long enough to build up revenue ... then sue.
Trademark law always seemed to me like the simplest and most obviously correct of the big three (trademark, copyright, patent). It's a shame that stories about it don't bother to explain it ... they could presumably just link to one page :)
This makes me happy (Score:5, Insightful)
I reckon that just about anything which pisses off the House of Mouse is a very good thing. Disney can go suck on a tailpipe as far as I'm concerned.
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Careful, that might be a trademark infringement. [flickr.com]
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Wow - life does indeed imitate art. I'm still chuckling and shaking my head - thanks!
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username checks out
Thanks for the laugh! It took me a moment though - there was a 'whoosh' overhead, but I stretched far enough fast enough to catch your reply before it flew out of range... :-)
You can despise two things at once. (Score:2)
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excellent diction
most commendable
Related fun fact: Burger King in Australia ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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They went through the list of trademarks owned by Pillsbury to determine what alternative name they could use. Hungry Jack's (a brand of Pancake Mix) was selected because it seemed plausible as a restaurant name.
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is called Hungry Jack's [wikipedia.org] because there was already a "Burger King" and the local bloke would not sell. Per Wikipedia, the resulting legal battle "introduced the American legal concept of good faith negotiations into the Australian legal system"
It also isn't allowed to put a restaurant within 20 miles of the Original Burger King [wikipedia.org] due to a court decision honoring the owner's state trademark that was older than the restaurant chain you're referencing.
Disney didn't bribe enough judges (Score:1, Interesting)
...that's how "settlements" are usually done.
Article not false (Score:2)
Go ahead any buy some Mickey Oregano here:
https://www.superseis.com.py/p... [superseis.com.py]
It's a spices brand. And it does seem to use Mickey Mouse's likeness.
Though frankly I'm not sure why having a mouse in your spices is a good thing.
I've bought the brand.
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Yo, I'm not clicking on random python scripts. /s
paradoxically (Score:2)
This paradoxically proves why Disney *has* to be such assholes about it and aggressively go after anyone faintly using one of their trademarks.
Mouse (Score:2)
How come Disney didn't sue Apple (well actually Xerox PARC) for inventing the computer mouse?
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That would be frivolous.
However, the unit of one step of movement on a mouse is traditionally called a "Mickey".