Oz vs US in ugg wars

[AccadaccA]

The gloves are off, or rather the boots are off now.

After decades of making "ugg boots" (sheep skin boots) Australia wide many businesses are ordered to stop production and close down thanks to some smart-ares yank copyrighting the word "ugg" throughout 25 countries. The legal owner(s) of the once common used word has not stopped at that either. They have ordered the Australian "Macquaries Dictionary" to also include reference to "ugg" & "ugg boot" as being registered trademarks. :rolleyes:

This has gotten way out of hand with celebraty names being copyrighted by drop-kicks trying to make easy money and lawsuits for everything and anything one can imagine.
Who gives anyone the rights to sell words of any language and if anyone should have that rights don't you think it either belongs to the original creator of the word if not the English?

I am considering copyrighting the following words "a", "I", "and", "pay","dollars", "cochroach" ....... etc. $$)
Better yet, I should copyright oxygen itself and charge (all those deadshits who copyright words) just to use my oxygen.

[MattB]

yea i heard about that on the news tonite Rob, pissed me of just like it has u.

I hope that lil company who is fighting it gets somewhere in their fight (Y)

Matt:beer:

[AccadaccA]

Yeah Matt (G'day mate and happy New Year) it was on "A Current Affair" tonight and although they said to check the www.ninemsn.com.au website immediately after that story they haven't updated it yet.

If anyone wishes to keep a check on it look under "t.v. shows" in the left hand menu or heres a link to the page http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/

I also forgot to mention that they are no longer permitted to sell their ugg boots online (they were stricken from ebay).


Look up "ugg" or "ugg boot" on Google and it's all (rightfully) Australian sites. However visit http://www.ugg-boots.us/ and they sell Australian made "ugg boots" even though every page on that site ends with ...
© 2004 Ugg Boots / Uggs / Ugg Shoes / Ugg All Rights reserved.

[wello]

what next I've heard it all now

I hope that guy gets a pair made from a fly blown sheep with the dags still on them

[Sepecat]

I remember this Ugg Boots… They are Really Popular among Women in the NYC area… I saw a report about it during Xmas time…

GEorge`

[Spiderman2]

FECK. That one belongs to me. Father Ted stole it. :?

"FECK" &copy Rob Mac 1995

[DC_Targa]

Next thing ya know some kid will grab the domain name Mikerowesoft.com :D

Wello, you have a moneymaker there! Go fast and copyright the name "Dag Boots", "Dag Shoes", "Dag Clothes", and "Dag.com". I'll bet tons of people worldwide would jump at the chance of buying such products once they learned what it meant. All I ask is 10% of the gross for giving you the idea.

EDIT: Crap "Data Advantage Group" alreays owns dag.com. BUT, Dags.com is still available!

[D_Man]

I can't believe that it would be possible to reister a common-use word as a trademark. It goes against the whole concept of what trademarks are meant to represent &(

I think that a legal challenge against such nonsense would be successful.

Dave

[VQ]

I like this this David and Goliath battle deepens with the US organisation no longer even selling Ugg Boots that are made in Australia. Instead, they're mass produced in China.

I mean seriously how stupid and cash hungry is the world these days?

Itz a bloody outrage that we can't even use this word, I thinkw e should all put money together to trademark register Racerplanet in case it isn't already so some stupid American (no offense to the people who run this site who are American and the fact the server is over in AMerica) doesn't take the site away from, while were at it, y don't we copyright the word V8 so no can company can use it? Maybe turbo and Formula one too?

[DC_Targa]

no offense to the people who run this site who are American and the fact the server is over in AMerica

Ya forgot to mention people that actually pay for this site.

And ya forgot to mention the bloke that is behind the whole ugg thingy. He tried to hide his name but people close to his organization know... I think this latest craze may have been caused by something he took.... or perhaps his recent ATV accident. Also rumor has it he used to wear uggs until he woke up one morning and found himself living too close to Neverland...

[PROBEX]

What do you think my odds are on winning a lawsuit, after all FORD stole my last name and made a car out of it.... PROBE.... and have you ever looked in the news paper everyone is PROBING something or has a space PROBE.. or the FBI PROBE dammmm i see my name in the paper and on the news almost everyday or I pass my name driving down the street...??/??? anyone a lawer I think I have a shot. $$) :slap:




My new home @ NFScity (http://www.probex.tk)

[AccadaccA]

Ahh good, they have finally upgraded their site.
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/images/art//uggboots_lg.jpg
The ugg boot is as fair dinkum as the Hills Hoist, the Harbour Bridge and the Holden but their citizenship is in danger after an international legal wrangle that's become ugly. Now, as ACA reports, the US company at the centre of the controversy is threatening small Australian businesses with a law suit if they dare call an ugg boot, well, an ugg boot.

The company, US giant Deckers Outdoor Corporation, have registered the trademark "Ugg" is 25 countries. It's a move that has outraged small business owners like Tony and Stephanie Mortel, who have been running a sheepskin business in New South Wales' Hunter Valley for more than a decade since taking over from family patriarch Frank, who founded it over 45 years ago.

"It defies the imagination why an Australian icon would be trademarked in the USA and then, then for that same company to come into Australia and stop us using that name, defies, defies me absolutely!" says Tony Mortel.

According to Frank, who's been selling and manufacturing ugg boots since 1958, the word ugg boot is a word he made-up all those years ago.

"I know who I am and what I've done and what I've named and ugg boots is one of them," he claims.

As Frank's discovered, in this ever-increasing litigious world, just because you name it doesn't mean you own it. However, this David and Goliath battle deepens with the US organisation no longer even selling Ugg Boots that are made in Australia. Instead, they're mass produced in China.

It comes at a time when the humble ugg's star is rising worldwide with the legally registered trademark now preventing Aussie businesses from cashing in.

"People will be forced to close their doors and people will go out of business and people will be put on the unemployment list," says Tony.

Potentially people like Bruce Harlow, who may not have named the ugg but after manufacturing the Aussie icon for as long as he has it's fair to say he too will be bitten by the ugg bug.

"I am upset that somebody can actually register a name in the mid-90s that was in the Macquarie Dictionary in 1982 as a generic term," he says.

But that's exactly what happened. And, to protect its trademark, it appears there is no length the US giant isn't prepared to go. It's even threatened to sue Australia's Macquarie Dictionary for daring to define "ugg" and not taking reference to the fact it's now an American trademark. So, in an effort to avoid costly litigation, the Macquarie has been forced to change its definition.

For Tony, there's a simple reason they decided not to register the name "Ugg".

"We thought about it years and years ago and we just thought, 'Hey, it's a generic word, how could anybody do it let alone us, why bother because everyone in the industry uses it?'" he explains.

Now, that oversight is costing them dearly with their products being withdrawn from a leading international auction website. But Frank and Tony are prepared to fight all the way.

"We won't let them win, no way," says Tony. "It's not the Australian way to give up."

We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the battlefields, we shall never surrender. :hat:

[Moe Faster]

I read a story some where that a kid tried to register his name as a domain . . . well . . . sort of.

His name is Mike Roe, and he wanted the domain name mikeroesoft.com . . . guess who took exception ??

8)~

[wello]

:p the only thing wrong Rob is did some fat pommy say this at the one time he may of been sobber:beer:


quote Acca
We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the battlefields, we shall never surrender

but I'm with you Rob

piss off Deckers Outdoor Corporation and try do something like oh I don't know lets try think of your idea to sell a product instead of searching for ones that you can wreck assholes if they had not of become a fashion in the US they wouldn't of give a nick about the word ugg i bet

[AccadaccA]

I wonder if they continue to use Aussie & New Zealand sheepskin or if the Chineese create some sort of synthetic crap?

[WCOutlaw]

Originally posted by Moe Faster
I read a story some where that a kid tried to register his name as a domain . . . well . . . sort of.

His name is Mike Roe, and he wanted the domain name mikeroesoft.com . . . guess who took exception ??

8)~
Just a small correction, as it's plastered all over the news anyway... His name is Mike Rowe, he HAS the domain mikerowesoft.com - and MS is looking to back down (probably due to all the publicity this got) - but the kid was a dumbass, and broke a few guidelines which got MS riled (He asked for $10,000 for MS to take the domain off him, which is against the terms in which he purchased the domain, as he wasn't supposed to buy it with intent to sell - which asking for $10k clearly shows).

Anyway, that's well documented on most news sites, sorry for hijacking...

Back to the UGG stuff, I think that's terrible, and I hope, even if it's just in Oz, that the mess gets cleared up and the trademark removed - I thought there were legal limits in place to stop this happening before TMs get approved...

Good luck to 'em -^