Sony denied exclusive 'Walkman' rights

Zardon

TOKYO--Austria's supreme court has told electronics giant Sony Corp to take a hike over its claim that it has exclusive rights to the "Walkman" name for portable stereos.
Sony said on Wednesday that the court had ruled that a wholesaler could refer to rivals' portable players as "Walkmans," dealing a blow to its jealously guarded trademarks.

Sony filed suit in Austria in 1994 to bar a wholesaler from using Walkman as a term for other manufacturers' goods.

But the court ruled that Walkman had become a common noun for portable stereos, citing among its reasons a definition of "Walkman" in a German dictionary that did not mention Sony.

Sony, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, vowed to continue pursuing legal means to protect its rights.

"This is our own property and not a common noun to be used by anybody," a spokeswoman said.

"This judgement is not satisfactory for us at all."

The spokeswoman said Sony knew of no similar suits relating to the Walkman trademark elsewhere.


reuters

dipstick

That's what happens when companies have too much money, the are always looking to secure even more money.

Jeff

But they came up with the term "Walkman" they should be allowed to keep it for themselves, I mean it has happened in other places, but that ruling is wrong in my opinion, if Sony can't have their trademark kept to only their products, then what is the point of trademarking anything?

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dipstick

Maybe that would be right if they chose to do so before every company and their mother pasted Walkman on them. What is everybody else gonna call them? I don't even think there is another name for those things. Just my opinion

Crash Override

I agree

I have one of the original Sony Walkmans. My uncle gave it to me. He had it when he was younger.

Big bulky things that weighed a ton sound decent but have nothing for battery life.

Thats like if someone called a game thats similar to GigaPet a GigaPet.......it would violate the name that has been protected by the company that made it.

Crash Override

Kakarot

Sony has used the name Walkman since around 1974.

It was copyrighted and Trademarked way back then and only came into popular usage when the player actually began to sell well in the early '80s

dipstick

If it was trademarked why are all companies-panasonic/pioneer- using it. The funny thing is there is no other name for those things. What will people call them(portable radios) If anything they should copyright the whole thing, not just the name.

Crash Override

you cant copyright a casette player really

its an invention that has been around forever but you can copyright and trademark the name

as for panasonic and pioneer show me a model that literally has walkman written on it

they dont they are advertised as such by stores which is what sonys complaining about

not companies using the name (as they dont) but stores advertising them as such

thats like if stores advertise all CPUs as Pentiums

that most likely would make them mad if they saw an ad for an AMD CPU and it said AMD Pentium XP or something similar

i think ya get my point though

EDIT-Almost forgot to mention

Most of the time now I see things advertised as Portable CD Players and Portable Cassette Players so thats an alternate way of selling them

dipstick

I still think it will make one hell of a fight in the court room. And it's not going to be easy for Sony. Next time I go to best buy I will double check and see what those thing say on them