Zooksport2

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!

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arch13

A us company has no right to declare a trademark in a country for which it is not even doing business or making the damn thing.
Every country is different and a company has no right to declare us protections on a name in other countries.
Business is dog eat dog and it seems like US companies want help from the legal system's of countries to extend their tradmarks worldwide.
Now if i went to a developing country i could register microsoft with that countries tardmark office and there's not a damn thing the US company microsoft should be able to do about it. I like that. I don't think companies should have international copywrite, but rather have to apply and be granted it in each country they do business in. That way they can't be registering it in countries they don't even do business in for the sake of "protecting their brand" in case they feel like doing business there latter.

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Phaenx

Moral of the story, protect your franchise. That's the way business works, you're not out to be nice, you're out to win.

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cchris

I wonder if anyone has registered the word "sandshoe"?

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There's a fine line between participation and mockery

bundy

well, i heard today that Philip Morris is the owner of Vegemite.

i knew Kraft bought the mite a while ago, i guess PM owns Kraft or something.

farewell Aussie Icons... you've been great...

(now, if only there was a way i could sell off John Williamson to the US...)

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Ohayo!!!

ratbastid

Never heard of an ugg boot before, but a little googling brought me this:

<img src="http://www.australianaura.com/img/productImages/mawson.jpg">

Looks comfy!

kulrblind

Hey, I saw a pair of those on the bus last night... I had no clue what they were.
Comfy-looking, indeed.

Oh, and "down with big-business-trademarking!"

Zooksport2

COMFY?????????????? Try em! You'lll never wanna take 'em off!

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grumpyolddude

Doesn't Australia have a forum for challenging the trademarking of terms that are otherwise in the public domain? If so, then there would seem to be enough historic and anecdotal evidence to mount the challenge. Stopping a non-Australian mega corp from putting the squeeze on local small business ought to be just the sort of battle Australians might embrace.

Will it help if I never buy any products from Decker?

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"Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

cchris

We can't even get them to keep Molly Meldrum.



Apparently they are just trying to work out (legally) the best way to tell them to Fuck off.

And yes.

Boycott Pecker,Decker,whatever.

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There's a fine line between participation and mockery

Zooksport2

Well we have had a small win!!!!

Take that! Deckers!!!



Aussies reclaim the ugg boot
By Alyssa Braithwaite January 17, 2006

AUSTRALIAN manufacturers of sheepskin boots have won back the right to call their shoes uggs.

The name "ugg" or "ugh" for the popular sheepskin boots, which have been sold and worn in Australia for decades, was registered as a trademark in the early 70s and bought by American company Deckers in 1995.

As the fleecy boot became a fashion must have in recent years, seen on the likes of Kate Moss and Pamela Anderson, Deckers successfully took legal action in 2003 to prevent local companies using the name ugg.

Angry small Australian ugg boot makers banded together to try to legally snatch back the ugg name, which originated in Australia in the late 1960s as a short form term for ugly.

Perth retailers Bronwyn and Bruce McDougall lodged applications with the government trademark regulator, IP Australia, in December 2003, attempting to reclaim the term "ugh-boots" from Deckers.

This week, the McDougalls received the news that the name is to be removed from the Australian register of trademarks, meaning it is now a generic name.

In his decision, trade mark hearings officer Ian Thompson said: "The evidence overwhelmingly supports the proposition that the terms (ugg, ugh and ug boots) are interchangeably used to describe a specific style of sheepskin boot and are the first and most natural way in which to describe these goods."

Mrs McDougall said they were elated by the decision.

"We are absolutely thrilled to bits," she said. "This is a moral victory for all Australians."

Lawyer David Stewart, SC, who represented the McDougalls, said he was very pleased with the result, which would come as good news to many Australians.

"It's a really good example of a bunch of small business owners all pulling together and helping each other out to overcome a problem," he said.

"What it effectively means, if (Deckers) don't appeal it and the decision stands, then they won't be able to send out letters to people telling them to stop using the word ugg or ugg boots.

"So with that monopoly removed it means anyone can use the word ugg-boots to describe their goods within Australia."

Mr Stewart said Deckers still owned the trademark in other jurisdictions, including the United States – a country many Australian companies sell their products to over the internet.

But he said the Australian decision could have flow-on effects overseas.

In the past, attempts to have the trademark removed from the US register failed because judges were not convinced ugg was a generic term in Australia thanks to Decker's registration of the word, Mr Stewart said.

"The case was lost on that point, so there might now be some repercussions on that point if someone decides again to challenge the trademark.

"There might be some sort of domino effect."

A representative for Deckers was unable to be reached for comment.



(Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...55E643,00.html )

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grumpyolddude

I'm so glad that my boycott was so effective!

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"Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

troit

Leave it to good 'ol capitalism. Charge someone $500.00 to buy boots mass produced in China with an unoriginal name.

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I've yet to dephile myself...

Ishmal

sweet as!

thanx 4 the update Zooksport2.

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"Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular."

analog

Wow... an update two years later, to within one day.

The moral of the story should be- business is business. If you're going to sell something- you'd better actually own it, or someone else will and drive you out of business.

I agree in this case, the decision was good, but it was still foolish for these businesses to make a unique product and not own the name of it. I don't care how long you've been making them, that's very poor business sense.

Ishmal

but Ugg Boot isn't really a brand.

it is the style of shoe.

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"Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular."

Zooksport2

I'll try to link a pic... for those wandering what they look like:




Note! site for info only, I am not endorsing, or otherwise, the site linked below....

http://www.aussiecountryshopping.com.au/UggBoots.asp


.

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Leto

i heard about them in the '70's. They seem to have made a comeback

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