Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Christine Haight Farley the American Professor of Law at University Washington College of Law, teaching Intellectual Property and Trademark Law has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Whether to challenge or protect offensive trademarks’ referring to offensive trademarks that may deeply offend a minority while the majority may be insensitive or unaware of the offence. Farley states “How would you feel about a wine called “Khoran?” Apparently, the word “Khoran” is Armenian for altar, which is why a company sought to trademark “Khoran” for wine in the United States. But should such a trademark be registered by the US government when, being phonetically equivalent to the sacred text of Islam, it may offend Muslims when used to denote an alcoholic beverage? In this case, the trademark was refused registration by the US trademark office. Should a trademark application for jeans called “Jesus Jeans” be treated any differently? In the US and European Union, this registration was allowed, however, China, Switzerland, Australia, Norway, Cuba, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have all refused the trademark, and Britain’s trademark office rejected its as “morally offensive to the public”. What should we do about offensive trademarks? Granted, this is not the biggest problem that plagues us today and there are very few offensive trademarks that are still in use. Perhaps the most obvious thing to do is to vote with our dollars. That is, generally the market will correct the problem since merchants usually do not want to offend their customers. …Racist trademarks tear down the fabric of society by promoting negative stereotypes of minority groups. There is a strong public interest in eliminating damaging stereotypes and stigmatisation. The social costs to the public at large are huge and include reinforcing hateful and erroneous stereotypes and misinformation about our fellow citizens. The psychological harms of such racialised representations impact not only the referenced group, but also society as a whole.”

Inspired by Christine Haight Farley, Aljazeera ow.ly/jAqgz Image source Facebook ow.ly/jAqg6

Amy L. Chua the 48 year old Professor of Law at Yale Law School specializing in the study of international business, ethics and globalization published her third book, a controversial memoir titled “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”. Chua explains in the book her views on parenting from a Chinese perspective, being of ethnic Chinese descent having parents emigrated to the United States from the Philippines. Controversy over the book developed for the very strict child-rearing regime she claimed was typical of Chinese parents advocating the “superiority” of such an approach, listed a number of very strict rules she enforces on her two daughters. Chua’s husband is Jewish, and the two children are also raised Jewish, which adds another dimension to Chua’s claim of  parenting from a Chinese perspective.

Inspired by Kevin Dolak ow.ly/3MD6L image source ow.ly/3MD6y