Trademark troll

In international law and business, a trademark troll is a person or company that attempts to register a trademark illegitimately and then threatens to sue others who use that mark.^[1] As a traditional troll is said to collect a toll from those trying to cross a bridge, a trademark troll "magically appears when an unsuspecting producer adopts the same or similar mark and poses upon them two choices: pay to get a license to use my mark or litigate".^[1]

The existence of trademark trolls exemplifies a common misunderstanding about trademark rights: the mere registration of a mark does not give the trademark owner a monopoly over that mark but must be used in commerce.^[1] As a consequence, while Leo Stoller, labelled a "prototypical trademark troll" by intellectual property attorney Anna Folgers, had brought 47 trademark infringement suits as of 2007, no court had found any infringement and the Northern District of Illinois had enjoined him from filing new actions without the court's permission.^[1] Similarly, the business practices of Tim Langdell of Edge Games were referred to as trolling by the US District Court after it was found that there was no evidence of commercial use of the asserted marks but that there was instead evidence that Langdell had fraudulently obtained and/or maintained many of his registrations.^[2][3][4][5]

Another more targeted example in 2008 involved Never Give Up Limited claiming that they owned the brands of two fruit juice chains, Juiceling in Glasgow and Juiced Up in Edinburgh. According to undercover reporting by the BBC, Never Give Up's representative, John Blanchard, sought tens of thousands of pounds to sell the trademarks back.^[6]

A more successful example was in November 2007, when businessman Dave Behar and his internet content production company Positive Ions, Inc. sued Ion Media Networks, claiming that Positive Ions owned the trademark to the word "Ion" and that Ion Media was using the name "Ion" without permission. Positive Ions were awarded a $1.7 million settlement; however, Ion Media continued using the "Ion" name for its channels.^[7][8]

Im Jahr 2017 reichte der PBS- Mitgliedssender WNED , Produzent der Serie „Reading Rainbow“ , eine Markenrechtsklage gegen den ehemaligen Moderator der Sendung, LeVar Burton , ein . ^{[ 9 ]} WNED beanstandete den Namen von Burtons Firma RRKidz und strebte die administrative Kontrolle über deren Websites und Social-Media-Konten an. WNED beantragte außerdem, Burton die Verwendung des „ Reading Rainbow“ -Slogans „Aber du musst mir nicht glauben“ in seinem Podcast zu untersagen. ^{[ 9 ]} Nach dem gewonnenen Rechtsstreit kündigte WNED eine Neuauflage der Sendung an, die jedoch in der Entwicklungsphase stecken blieb . ^{[ 10 ]}

In China wird Markenpiraterie, auch als „Markenbesetzung“ bezeichnet, von Kommentatoren und politischen Entscheidungsträgern als gravierendes Problem beschrieben. Gemäß den chinesischen Vorschriften für Markenanmeldungen aus dem Jahr 2019 ist die Anmeldung von Marken in böser Absicht verboten, und Markenpiraterie wird ausdrücklich als Form unrechtmäßiger böser Absicht definiert. ^{[ 11 ]} Zuwiderhandlungen können mit einer Geldstrafe von bis zu 100.000 Yuan geahndet werden, während Manager, die für Zuwiderhandelnde arbeiten, persönlich mit einer Geldstrafe von 50.000 Yuan belegt werden können und in schweren Fällen sogar eine Haftstrafe erhalten.

• Urheberrechtstroll
• Patenttroll
• SAD-Programm