Marx on trademarks

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob mentioned the Austrialian article on trademarks, but he left out
what I thought was the best part:

In 1942, the Marx Brothers were planning to make a movie called A
   Night In Casablanca.  Warner Bros blocked the move, saying that it
   owned the rights to the name.  Groucho Marx retorted in a famous
   letter to Warner that moviegoers would eventually be able to
   distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo.  The Marx Brothers
   lost.
He wrote: "You claim you own 'Casablanca' and that no one else can
   use that name without your permission.  What about 'Warner
   Brothers'? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use
   the name 'Warner', but what about 'brothers'? Professionally, we
   were brothers long before you were ...  and even before us there
   had been other brothers -- the Smith Brothers, the Brothers
   Karamazov, Dan Brothers, an outfielder from Detroit, and 'Brother,
   Can You Spare a Dime?'.  (This was originally 'Brothers, Can You
   Spare a Dime?' But this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they
   threw out one brother and gave all the money to the other one)."


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx