DECKERS Outdoor corp. have stolen the name of one of our icons!
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/stories/1608.asp
"quote" :
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."
(unquote)
Give it back!