news: op.tyjfwfzyc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> You're heading into trademark land. Remember Apple, the two  were 
> operating in different spheres hence no problem. With Gilles examples the 
> French courts should have told Kraft to bugger off, Milka Budmir wasn't 
> selling chocolate, wasn't profiting from the association and had a 
> legimate reason to use the name; Kraft's fault for not registering it 
> first.

The problem is that individuals usually can't afford this kind of fight, 
unlike corporations.

I just had a look at the Milka case, btw. While I still feel that she was in 
her right, I see that she asked 25000 euros because Kraft "tattooed a cow in 
mauve, thus slandering her name" and another 25000 because of the 
"commercial usage of a degrading image that she was identified with" 
(presumably the mauve cow named Milka). This was pretty stupid and I can 
understand that a judge would find her arguments frivolous.

Another problem is that Kraft accused her to have used the mauve colour for 
her website background, something they claimed was a proof of malicious 
intent. Mrs Budmir said that colour was fuschia, not mauve. The court still 
maintained that the colour was a problem, even though they said that a 
"chromatic analysis" was no longer possible. Of course, said colour is 1 
second away at archive.org, and the "chromatic analysis" consists in reading 
the HTML code (#0080FF fuschia while Kraft is #706DB2 mauve), something 
nobody did apparently. So Kraft benefited from Budmir's, her lawyer's and 
the court's poor technological knowledge.

G.

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