<nettime> Max.Christmas

["Richard Pettauer" <r.pettauer@apa.at>]

Dear Nettimers,

this article appeared in today's edition of "Format", an
Austrian weekly newspaper. They are currently working on
their internet site, and the original aritcle was published
in German - I tried to translate the most important parts of
it. I think this is ridiculous and shocking at the same
time. The catholic church of Austria has not protested
officially yet, but tonight Bishop Krenn is expected to
comment on the "incident".


Max.Christmas from now on

[...] Austrian mobile-phone company "Max" is the fastest
growing competitor in the small Austrian market of cellular
phones. But till this day, the state-owned company A1 has
had more customers, but this could change after Christmas.
[...]

Over the last few months, Max has tried to establish its
brandname by various means. The company invested in the
Austrian football league, which official title now is
Max.Bundesliga [Max.National-League]. [...]

Now Max has tried to get a trademark issued for a new brand:
Max.Weihnachten [Max Christmas]. Company spokeswoman Amanda
Micker told the media: "Nothing stands in the way so far.
Max.Weihnachten is supposed to be the most-used word in the
next few weeks - this will assure us a lot of attention." If
the trademark is declared legal, this would basically mean
that every commercial use of the word "christmas" would have
to include "Max". [...]

Since the idea has been officially introduced this week, not
many statements have been made yet. Peter Abromer, owner of
a Christmas-Market in the Southern part of Austria,
protested: "Why do we have to call our market
Max.Christmas-Market? It's ridiculous, that we have to pay
fines, if we don't - actually, Max should have to pay us for
the basically free ads!"
[...]

Dr. Martin Kiraner, a Viennese lawyer specialised in
coypright-law, doesn't take the case too serious. He
claimed, that even the commercial use of the word had to
include the company's name, private individuals still would
be allowed to call Christmas "Weihnachten" instead of
"Max.Weihnachten". [...]

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      |||        Richard Pettauer       |||
    |||      http://www.pettauer.net      |||
  ||| ritchie@medianexus.net|r@pettauer.net |||
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