Quote:
Originally Posted by homoe
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against BSA in November. The organization argued that only it has "the right to use the Girls Scouts and Scouts trademark with leadership development services for girls."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dark_crystal
GSA is wrong for this. Even if they have a case, they should not press it. There is nothing they could lose, infringement-wise, to BSA that won't be further imperiled by appearing to erect barriers to opportunities for the very constituency they serve.
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I agree, but unfortunately trademark law doesn't work that way. If you have a trademark and you don't protect it against _every_ violation, you lose your rights to protect it from anybody at all; i.e., if Girl Scouts doesn't bring legal action against the Boy Scouts, any group anywhere could start calling themselves Girl Scouts and selling cookies, and there would be nothing the Girl Scouts could do about it.
That said, I expect they will work out something legally protecting both parties.
Also, I have a (girl) friend who always wanted to be a Boy Scout. All her brothers were Scouts, and her dad was a Scout Master. She didn't want to join Girl Scouts at all. (I assured her that her impression of Girl Scouts was quite wrong - we did not just sit around knitting and baking cookies. Grrr - irritating misconception.) She didn't care - she had just wanted to do what her brothers did.
I expect it will eventually be a good thing, overall. At least, I hope so.