A Canadian trademark lawyer has posted an analysis of the Canadian Red Cross's claim that video games' use of the red cross emblem to indicate health-kits is a violation of its rights.
I've blogged twice about a Canadian Red Cross executive's misguided harassment campaign against users of the red cross symbol to indicate health services.
Now a Canadian trademark lawyer has reviewed the Canadian Red Cross's claims and found them dubious at best. Even if they had merit, I can't imagine a more frivolous and even harmful use of the Canadian Red Cross's limited resources than to chase around bugging people who use the red cross mark (Band Aids, anyone?). If I'm going to donate money to a humanitarian charity, I want it to be spent furthering the charity's mission. not causing trouble for publishers who produce works of fiction that use its marks.
The Canadian Red Cross, in their letter, takes the position that such adoption and use is unlawful (s. 11 provides the prohibition against "use"). However, being somewhat unfamiliar with video game law, I think that one of the more interesting issues now raised is whether the display of the Red Cross emblem inside a video game would even constitute adoption/use "in connection with a business".
Maybe Mr. Bennett knows of some case law that is on point. But in the absence of such case law, I could see some video game developers trying to argue that use of the Red Cross Emblem inside a video game is not use of the mark in connection with a business; and that such use is therefore not prohibited by the Act.
That also leads me to the following scenario… what about showing actual Red Cross vehicles displaying the emblem as part of a TV news clip. This is done often by various TV news media. Would such a news clip also be an adoption in connection with a business? I suspect not, but again I don't know the answer for sure.
The representative in question, David Pratt, was previously in Canadian Parliament, where he was the boss of Sam Bulte, a deposed Liberal Party MP who ran on a platform of taking giant campaign contribution from international entertainment companies and delivering laws that criminalized Canadians to preserve their business-models.
Pratt's made statements about violent videogames conflicting with the Red Cross's humanitarian mission, something that's both ignorant and offensive. There's nothing anti-humanitarian about playing with simulated violence in works of art. Humanitarianism is about not harming people — hurting pixels isn't bad for anyone. Pratt's brand of literary criticism is about as well-thought-out as his understanding of Canadian trademark law.
(Thanks, Sander!)
