French Designer Ordered to Give up milka.fr 462
jmf writes "The BBC is running a story about French designer Milka Budumir, who has been ordered by a judge to give up milka.fr to Kraft Foods. You can read her side of the story (in French) at her site which also points to Kraft's side of the story. Kraft make very good chocolate, but they seem to be colour-blind: claiming that this website's colour is similar to this one's."
WHOA! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WHOA! (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry to hear that. You know, I think there are drugs you can take to make your 'crow' hard again.
Reminds me of many years ago. (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, to make a long story longer...the lawyers from Gant Shirts got ahold of me some years later demanding I release all claims on gant.com to them...but of course, I didn't mention that I didn't even remember registering it...but why muck up the water? So I wrote back and said, hey, it's my fricken name! How could I part with my name! Then I started channeling Arthur Millers "The Crucible" with "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; LEAVE ME MY NAME!"
They cut a check for an even grand and I found I could part with my name pretty easily after all.
Re:Reminds me of many years ago. (Score:5, Funny)
At least that's what I told the judge.
Evil Milka! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Evil Milka! (Score:2)
a designer ??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:a designer ??? (Score:2, Funny)
Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:5, Informative)
I believe they purchased the brand after it was well-establishee but that doesn't matter at this point, as Kraft's name is on the letterhead.
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:5, Interesting)
You must eat some pretty shitty chocolate if you call Milka the "finest".
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Definitely! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, I disagree with he "finest" part. Rather, Leysieffer [leysieffer.de] or Lindt [lindt.com] come to mind if quality is what I am prompted with (also, compare the style of these sites with "milka" [milka.de] and draw your own conclusions about the targets).
Hard to believe that the most sold product in the segment/category is upmarket anyway.
CC.
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:5, Informative)
Côte d'Or is owned by Kraft as well. You can see it by looking around on http://www.cotedor.be/ [cotedor.be] or directly on http://www.kraftfoods.be/ [kraftfoods.be]. Fortunately, they haven't changed the products in any significant way so they still taste good.
I would also also recommend trying Galler [galler.com] chocolate (not owned by Kraft Foods - yet).
Good German chocolate (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't go wrong with Ritter Sport [ritter-sport.de]. All kinds of Schokolade goodness in 100g squares...
/drool
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cadbury isn't American its English (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cadbury isn't American its English (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Insightful)
We aren't missing it, it is just against the American way of life. Take everything good and wholesome and come up with a cheap, mechanized, pasterized, homoginized, and preservativized way to mass produce something that looks exactly like the original product, and is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike it in every other way.
I love this country. (Just don't drink the water)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
And it makes sense, too, when you think about it. Why would you buy an established brand the name of which stands for a certain quality and then water it down?
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:3, Interesting)
Somewhat OT, but funny you should mention Kraft Cheese products. You would be correct to assume that the process and many ingredients would be unrecognizable to fine cheesemakers of the world. I can't go into detail (NDAs and such) but I have personally written the PLC, HMI, and database code that controls the entire cheese-making process at thei
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
Re:Kraft makes good chocolate? Doubtful. (Score:2)
Oh yeuch. Anonymous vegetable fat, sugar and something to stain it brown without introducing any noticable flavour of chocolate.
Safeway's generic... (Score:2)
This is, of course, UK Safeways (now Morrisons Group).
Designer? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Designer? (Score:3, Informative)
This is her one big chance at fame, let her bask in the spotlight.
Her site has been dormant for a couple of years now, its just recently with the media "interest" that shes spruced it up.
Mind you, it looks downright awful, but who am I to judge.
Re:Designer? (Score:2)
Re:Designer? (Score:2)
Re:Designer? (Score:4, Insightful)
OMFG (Score:5, Insightful)
So they got away with their neglection by fixing it with a lawsuit. Man, I thought France was about freedom and justice.
Re:OMFG (Score:4, Funny)
You're thinking of Iraq!
Re:OMFG (Score:5, Funny)
Bad, but Not Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
She should appeal, then settle. Go to the new suggested domain (milkacouture.fr) and have Kraft link her from Milka.fr with a brief note about the settlement.
Irregardless, I hope she has the sense to register the alternative (milkacouture) just in case. It's currently unreserved and prime for a squatter.
Re:Bad, but Not Too Bad (Score:2, Informative)
It's not a word...good grief
Sort of... (Score:3, Informative)
You skipped the part about how it's a "word" created in America in the 20th century, from a blend of "irrespective" and "regardless." The "ir-" prefix and "-less" suffix are redundant. You also fail to mention that Webster's recommends it not be used. Dictionary.com is less kind, calling it a "blunder."
This is an example of a made up word that does not have a correct usage, but American di
Re:Sort of... (Score:3, Insightful)
The distinction being what - that "irregardless" becomes a word simply because a number of people use it incorrectly? Irregardless of how many people use it that way, it's still incorrect. By your standard, any set of connected letters that someone incorrcetly uses in speech becomes a word. It's only in the dictionary because many people use it incorrectly.
You can sp
Re:Sort of... (Score:3, Insightful)
People come from different backgrounds and are raised differently. For some, it's natural to say "irregardless". Some say "offen" while others say "offten", big whoop. Get over it.
Re:Bad, but Not Too Bad (Score:3, Interesting)
You need to have a registered business with the same (or a close one) name to be allowed to apply for it.
Kraft owns Milka? (Score:5, Insightful)
So when did Kraft buy it? Does this mean it's gonna get worse?
Re:Kraft owns Milka? (Score:2)
But of course, that's only talking about the quality of the chocolate, not that of the business ethics.
Re:Kraft owns Milka? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kraft owns Milka? (Score:5, Insightful)
even the cheapest german chocolate is better than milka.
if you want to try a really good chocolate, try lindt
Re:Kraft owns Milka? (Score:5, Informative)
In reaction, Belgium has created a new label "Ambao" which identifies chocolates containing only cocoa butter. I suppose (and hope) that similar initiatives have been taken in other countries where chocolate is taken seriously
See this article [nytimes.com] for details...
Not a designer (Score:5, Informative)
Thing is, in France, trademark law will prevail when it comes to
Country TLDs ownership rules differ from country to country, unlike the usual
Re:Not a designer (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, Milka-the-company owns their trademark only for chocolate and dairy products, it's available for all other uses. If a "script kiddie for hire" company in town A is named "Pwnage", this doesn't restrict a "bouncers for hire" company in town B from using the same name. In fact, giving one of them advantage over the other -- that is, any advantage other than preventing people from knowingly infringing an established name -- is just plain wrong. And show me how exactly the old lady's parents were knowingly abusing the company's name...
Re:Not a designer (Score:3, Interesting)
How many people named McDonald do you think there are in the world? Some proportion of them presumably run restaurants or similar. How many of them have the trademark on that name for that purpose in their jurisdiction?
What is supprising is that the court decided that such a different business infringed. Presumably French trademark law is very different from UK and US law.
Re:Not a designer (Score:4, Insightful)
Most major companies are extremely interested in brand names. They see the brand name itself as more important than any individual product that's associated with it. They're always looking for new products to associate with succesful brands. It also means they get very concerned at any threat to the brand image.
In this particular case, Kraft are not in the clothing business, nor are they ever likely to be. But they *do* have interests in promotional items which might well include clothes.
The Milka brand has for a very long time been associated with a particular colour: a shade of lilac/purple. Compared side-by-side there's not much similarity between that and the milka.fr site. But milka.fr does use a sort of purple/mauve colour: someone going to that site might conceivably mistake it for the trade-marked colour - if they didn't have an example to hand - and think that the site was associated with the chocolate in some way.
I suspect that Kraft's objection is not so much that Ms Milka might make soome money out of it, but that their customers might wonder "why is Milka associated with this tatty little fashion site?", thus damaging the name.
Not a big risk, but if they let one site get away with it - however innocently - they leave themselves wide-open to future abuse.
Coming down on the side of big business isn't going to be popular around here, but I think that Kraft are quite justified in this case, provided that they don't get too heavy-handed.
Re:Not a designer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not a designer (Score:2)
Re:Not a designer (Score:5, Insightful)
And I don't really care if companies register every conceivable domain - actually, that seems like it would be a prudent practice to me.
Re:Not a designer (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of the strategy of moving into a new market would be to come up with a plan - investigate available urls, perhaps try to make deals to get ones that you feel would be more advantageous. If there is some cyber-squatti
Re:Not a designer (Score:3, Insightful)
Bloody brilliant (Score:2)
Oops.
Yeah, two different companies doing two different things using a common/generic name "Apple" and it still wound up in the courts.
I think you do not really understand the intricacies of trademarks.
Re:Not a designer (Score:2)
Just out of curiosity, what TLD do non-business entities in France use then, the universal TLD's?
Re:Not a designer (Score:3, Informative)
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The rules have been relaxed recently.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that t
Re:Not a designer (Score:2, Informative)
what TLD do non-business entities in France use then, the universal TLD's?
The criteria were relaxed last May; you no longer need to supply proof of a registered trademark [afnic.fr] when obtaining a
To answer your question: yes, until the law change people either obtained a universal TLD or made do with an ISP subdomain [google.com].
Slight tangent: people here in France seem to have been (kept?) remarkably poorly informed about the procedure for obtaining a domain name, whether it be a
Re:Not a designer (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but doesn't trademark only apply to a specific industry? It doesn't seem likely that someone going to Milka Couture is going to believe that th
ah .. the food companies.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar color schemes, sure. (Score:5, Funny)
use of garish, clashing, high-saturation colours that DON'T GO TOGETHER.
New idea for software patent? (Score:2)
You'll make a mint!
Unlawful Trademark Overreach (Score:2, Interesting)
Many businesses share the same name as others.
It tells you everything on http://wipo.org.uk/ [wipo.org.uk]
Looks like Lawyers creating jobs for themselves... (Score:3, Interesting)
In a way they are administrative personell. And the primary goal of any administration is to grow, because it has no jsutification for its existence in the first place.
Judicial not product confusion (Score:4, Interesting)
But why does the chocolate company NEED the French site ? Yes, it has a name of their product, but there are limited meaningful/nice/... names that can be used but millions of businesses around the world - just 'cos you are big doesn't mean that you can lay claim to all uses of what happens to be the name of your product(s) - follow that to conclusion and we will run out of names quite quickly. Every town in the UK seems to have an ABC taxi company - no problem at all.
Why not try to stop the use of the name outside the shop ? Well, they would fail; it is just that the judges are sufficiently confused to think that 'E-space' is different from 'physical-space' that they come up with these stupid decisions.
Re:Judicial not product confusion (Score:2)
However, even then the damage is neglibable - I mean, if I'm looking for information about chocolate and (for example) I go to www.milke.fr
Re:Judicial not product confusion (Score:2)
Re:Judicial not product confusion (Score:2)
But now, after seeing this story I'm absolutely convinced I'll buy chocolate of some other brand. No giving my money to surname thieves.
Re:Judicial not product confusion (Score:2)
Yes, it means exactly that. You can. As it was clearly demonstrated.
Re:Judicial not product confusion (Score:5, Informative)
In order to fill a gap in Europe?
Note that they don't have most of the nordic countries nor the new members of the EU. Hint: many of these domains are open for registration!
Most of these sites redirect to the corresponding Kraft Foods site for that country, or to the globak www.kraft.com [kraft.com].
Re:Judicial not product confusion (Score:5, Informative)
I just realized that I missed an important one:
Until a few years ago, companies that had trademarks in France were supposed to register their domains under .tm.fr. Apparently, Kraft did register www.milka.tm.fr.
But since the rules have changed (around 2002, I think) the company has been trying to get the domain that had been registered by that lady in the meantime.
why didn't they register it before? (Score:2, Insightful)
And if they don't they shouldn't be surprised someone else (legitemately) registered it, i think she's entitled to keep it because it's her name and Kraft was too cheap to register it in the first place.
Re:why didn't they register it before? (Score:2)
>level domains so you don't get this nonsense
>later.
Out of curiosity, what would you say is the point in having all the different top level domains if each one is still assigned to the very same company???? Sort of defeats the purpose and need of them, would you not say?
from the you-must-give-up-your-milka dept. (Score:3, Funny)
It's an outrage (Score:5, Funny)
Bad Taste And Good Chocolate (Score:3, Interesting)
Ummmm, wtf?
Kraft dont even make food let alone 'good chocolate'.
This is what real chocolate looks like [google.com]; and the taste, as compared to the garbage made by Hersheys, Kraft and the like is like the difference between, oh, how can we describe it to the unitiated
Re:Bad Taste And Good Chocolate (Score:2)
Translation: (Score:5, Informative)
At the moment their "friendly" solution is to pay for the costs of taking the domain milka.fr from the lady and offering her milkacouture.fr, which is useless to her, because her clients don't know it. She also does not understand why they complain, because she did not do them any damage. Milka claims there is a link between the ladies site and www.food.fr, whish sells pizzas in Valence.
She also says that her site will not lead away internetters who look for the chocolate company, because she only appears as 41th on search engines.
She concludes to say that KRAFT never wanted the best for both parties, and only wanted her to give up the domain name, and only after a struggle of 2 years they are prepared to reimburse her the costs she has made.
Re:Translation: (Score:2)
The term already agreed upon is internauts. Especially seeing that this is a french story and the term originates from france.
Similar case in italy last year (Score:3, Informative)
Search on google "timbrificio armani" if you are interested and you can read italian.
Cursor text (Score:2)
Hey guys. Milka's her NAME! (Score:5, Interesting)
She can't even use her NAME as a web site. Where's the justice in that?
Kraft might as well tell Taco he can't run
The internet tries to flatten too many regionalisms into too few TLDs. Its a stupid system of nomenclature.
Time to start... (Score:2)
Simple Rule: (Score:3, Interesting)
NOT for Product names, be they medicines, foods, movies.
getting a domain name should involve faxing a copy of an offical document, such as drivers license/birth cert., business license, charitable organization license, etc appropriate for the domain in question.
Guild rules (Score:2)
So, then, I'll just add that to the list of reasons to boycott Kraft products.
Did anyone read anything at all? (Score:4, Interesting)
- Within the framework of a friendly solution, our company does not claim any sum with Mrs. Budimir. In a new mail addressed on last 17 November, we proposed to take responsibility for our the expenses related on the deposit and the administration of the site "milka.fr" of its creation so far.
- We also proposed to Mrs. Budimir to take responsibility for our the deposit of the domain name "milkacouture.fr" which corresponds to the sign of its stores. This name would guarantee to Mrs. Budimir to continue to develop its activities and to inform its customers without creating confusion with our mark.
Milka Budimir's response
This proposal is entirely unfavourable for me because my customers, local
primarily, knows me under the name of Milka, and that the possible ones
customers would have by no means the reflex to seek "milkacouture".
My response
If her customers are local namely those who are in walking distance of her store.. then why does she need a website at all. Unless her website is more about her store then the store itself. Therefore a change in domain name will not hurt her financially at all.
Re:Did anyone read anything at all? (Score:3, Funny)
Possibly true. But by the same token, why does Milka (the chocolate company) need a website at all? They sell their products in retail stores, not over the net. Their site serves absolutely no useful purpose.* Sometime in the 90s, the finest minds of the business world decided that a product needs to have a "web presence" in order to be taken seriously. It doesn't matter if anyone act
BUT she HAD IT FIRST!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got your suggestion right here (Score:5, Funny)
Mrs. Budimir should suggest that Kraft re-launch their own website, under the name www.butthead-astronomers-chocolate.fr.
Re:oh the humanity (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, you Mom taught you a useful trade - you've got to be thankful for that, huh?
(Many apologies - but your comment came closer to troll than joke, and I just wanted to point out that it is not nice to be cruel to people... as you can see from being on the receiving end. It's always surprising to see a low UID
Re:Boycott! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:HTML header (Score:2, Informative)
Still, not as bad as FrontPage
Re:Storm in a tea pot (Score:2)
Slashdot is unknown outside of the geeks world, if Microsoft were to buy the domain name tomorrow, no one would mind because it does not need visibility and has 0 clients. I bet Slashdot is not even trademarked!
Her shop is called Milka and she bought the domain name before Kraft. She is not hurting anyone and chocolate eaters DO NOT need to visit some fucking web site before buying some chocolate. I don