Down to the Wire 2002: Trademarking a Sticky Situation

Nigel Hammersley on word of mouth becoming social media.

Down to the Wire 2002: Trademarking a Sticky Situation

A number of Kiwi bloggers found themselves in a sticky situation when the owner of a certain brand of adhesive tape set the lawyers on them for daring to... talk about their products.

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Relations between businesses and consumers had been relatively quiet on the Kiwi front for the majority of the Internet's formative years – possibly because very little retail business was actually done online.

Even still, in 2002, the Web was gaining enough influence over consumer behaviour to scare some brands and businesses - some into positive action, others less so. One such brand was Sellotope®. A number of bloggers opened their post one day in June to discover a letter telling them that their websites were infringing trademarks by referring to the product without displaying the correct trademark symbol. They were informed that the references were to be removed or modified with the addition of the registered trademark symbol or further action would be taken.