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Converse shoes and trademark infringement
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1171015374755
Converse, the shoe company, apparently used the trademarks of historic black fraternities and sororities on some of its shoes. The fraternities and sororities involved have agreed to a settlement. Converse is going to share the revenue from those shoes with the organizations, and it also is going to offer internships in finance and marketing to students from those particular organizations. This seems to be a really good way to make both parties happy; Converse can keep producing the shoes, and the fraternities and sororities get lots of money.
It seems to me that Converse was really the party that made the trademark valuable; I doubt that had the fraternities and sororities produced their own shoes bearing their trademarks, they would have made anywhere near the amount of money they will receive from Converse's sales. I thought that the internships were an interesting term of the settlement, and will probably help restore goodwill (not in the trademark sense) between the two parties. The lawyers probably aren't making as much money as they would have had the case gone to court, though.
Posted by at February 11, 2007 3:45 PM
in Current Events
