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Ask HN: Does Trump presidency limit trademark of his name?

5 points by datashovel ↗ HN
I'm planning on being active over the course of the next four years in politics. I'm intending to (for example) purchase domain name(s), perhaps sell merchandise. What general rules should we (whoever will be involved in politics) know in order to steer clearly away from trademark infringement, as we all know the Trump name is almost certainly tied up in trademarks all over the place.

NOTE: I'm left-leaning on most things, so trying to be especially careful :)

EDIT: Many folks were commenting that I probably should change the question to "trademark". Instead of changing back I probably should clarify that I probably mean both trademark and copyright. After all (for example), portraits of him, and perhaps portraits of his hotels or other assets may or may not be in play here?

7 comments

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smt88
You have three options:

1) Hire an actual lawyer. 2) Don't do this. 3) Do this, but take the risk of doing it without legal advice.

Note that I did not include a fourth option: "Get adequate legal advice about a complicated legal issue from a message board." I did not include it because it's not a real thing.

datashovel
Oh, I'll certainly get legal advice. Just trying to make those sessions more productive by getting a bit of a head start. Also I think it'll be good for all citizens to get a heads up on what will and won't restrict them (thus the public forum). So anything I learn, that might help others, will more than likely become public in the form of a blog post, etc.

I doubt there is a single thing on this planet that Trump values more than his name. Thus the precarious nature of being politically active during this President's term. Unless citizens are protected. I just don't know what those protections / limitations are.

On the other side of the coin Trump never had issues calling the Affordable Care Act "Obamacare" so maybe there are laws that protect this sort of thing? Sure he said he took the name affectionately, but we all know it was originally created to slander his name.

I respect the opinions / knowledge produced on this forum, but will never put my future livelihood in its hands.

schoen
I would agree with the suggestion to ask a lawyer. You started off by saying "copyright of his name". But you probably meant trademark and right of publicity, which can apply to names, rather than copyright, which can't. A lawyer can help you become familiar with these distinctions and the specific rules that apply to them.
Millennium
Talk to a lawyer. Although there are probably some lawyers on HN, I'm not one of them, and it would be difficult if not impossible to verify the credentials of anybody who claimed to be one.

The US government generally does not claim copyright on its works. However, the Trump name is more likely to be tied up in trademark law than copyright law, and this muddies the waters considerably. It works to your advantage in some ways, but against you in others. Be careful.

Millennium
Oops. As I was writing this, the original post still talked about copyrigt rather than trademark. It has since been edited. Sorry about that.
datashovel
No problem. My mistake. I would definitely not accept the info as legal advice. But as with most things discussed on this forum people like to point others to what may be useful in their research?

I, as probably most others on this forum, would not put our future livelihoods in the hands of anonymous comments.

That said, I think an open forum conversation brings a lot of perspectives (useful and not) to the table that can help in one way or another.

After all, this is the future POTUS we're talking about.