As many USians have done or will do soon, I fulfilled my civic duty today. Since I vote in Washington State and have recently moved to New York City, I voted by absentee ballot.
Here’s a (washed out) snapshot of the envelope that my ballot will be making its way across the country in:
You can tell, from the logo in the top middle of the envelope that it is Official Election Mail.
Here’s a close up of that logo, reserved "for use by election officials" by the postal service to, as noted here, "enhance the identification and ensure proper handling of this important type of official communication." Here is a clearer shot of the logo:
You can tell, from the "TM" in the logo, that Official Election Mail is a trademark.
This is completely ridiculous. Trademark law is created to to keep consumers from being confused by manufacturers trying to unfairly capitalize off the goodwill created by one company; to allow consumers to associate a certain level of quality with a certain brand or company. There is hardly a market in Official Election Mail. As much as I would like to shop around for a better ballot when I find the choices on mine lacking, this is not the case.
I can think of any numbers of different legal ways to stop people from putting Official Election Mail logos on the top of their mail — mail fraud and election tampering are simply the first two that come to mind. Trademarks (and every branch of IP for that matter) were created as limited and narrowly defined legal instruments to fulfill a particular purpose. They were not all-purpose ways to keep people from saying things you rather they not say. This is not a trademark issue and it doesn’t need to be.
By asserting a trademark in a place where one is not necessary and where historically trademarks would not be used, it’s a symptom and a reinforcement of the the "IP for everything" culture. It is an expansion and an abuse.
Trademarks still strike me as mostly pro-consumer and they’re the arm of intellectual property law that I have the least significant problems with. This sort of thing makes me reconsider that position.
I don’t agreee with you. There IS a market for “election mail”.
It seems that when you vote by mail (excuse me if that’s not correct, i’m from France, we don’t use mail for voting) your mail is carried by USPS. What if, for example, UPS or FEDEX decided to take this market ? They could create à product (sold to the government) called “election mail” or something like that. That’s why USPS should protect their IP.
No ?
That’s an interesting suggestion and I’m not quite sure how to answer it.
My guess is that you can only send official election with the US Postal Service from within the US because it must be postmarked by election day (not arrived at its destination) and I’m not sure if they respect whatever UPS or FedEx use instead of postmarks.
In any case, it’s imaginable that there is a market in how you send your election mail. Of course, that doesn’t mean that trademark is the correct way for one mail provider to keep others from entering the market for sending election mail. Voting is not like buying a soft drink and being Official Election Mail is not like being the Official Soft Drink of Major Leage Baseball. It’s not he same kind of market if it is a market at all.
If the USPS is not the official way to send election mail, they shouldn’t be saying it at all because it’s untrue. If they are the official way to send election mail, they shouldn’t need to trademark law to keep others from saying it.
I would think that the trademark could be used to keep someone from producing fake “official election mail” letters, enough of which would defeat the effectiveness of the special handling.
Gregory,
My point was that if someone is making fake “official election mail” there are bigger crimes on than a trademark violation. IP is being overused and the fact that’s being used in place of things like election tampering and mail fraud is what I find problematic.