Fisker Practices TM
I admire Henrik Fisker’s adaptability. When he realized that the high end market didn’t want reskinned German cars, he put his business plans int he greenwasher and emerged with cash-in-hand. Fisker decided he wanted to build a beautiful, powerful hybrid car– and that’s just what he wants to build. The Karma is quite an achievement, in terms of design, technology, and convincing someone to give Fisker millions of dollars. But then there’s the sanctimonious EcoBabble™. One of our Best and Brightest emailed me an excerpt from the brochure today, and the bits about the interior trim, well, judge for yourself. “Wood trim is recovered from trees found in America’s wilds: Fallen Trees™ that have succumbed to age; Rescued Trees™ burned in forest fires; and Sunken Trees™ lying on lake bottoms.” “Recylable EcoGlass™, made from naturally occurring sand…” “The EcoSport™ series incorporates hand-wrapped premium leather processed using a 100 percent sustainable Happy Cow™ manufacturing strategy…” If a tree falls in the forest, but no one trademarks it…
More by Robert Farago
Comments
Join the conversation
The EcoSport is sold by Ford here in Brazil. It is a Ford Fiesta (not the European Fiesta) trying to be a CUV. Women love it here. http://images.google.com/images?q=ford+ecosport But I suppose that doesn't mean they have TM'ed it in the US as well.
tesla deathwatcher : Also, from what I saw Hyundai does not have a registered trademark for EcoSport, just a fairly new trademark application. Whoops, you're right - it is an application. I suppose I can blame it on the late hour. Although, from personal experience I can tell you that it's surprising what sort of litigation this can attract. It's fine if you're large, but when you're small it can consume valuable time. If Hyundai and PPG have their applications approved, Fisker will have problems. I've received some really bizarre C&D's that were a huge stretch, but as frivolous as they were (to the point they apologized and compensated me) I still had to deal with them. The EcoGlass mark is only a problem in that they should have used the registered mark instead of TM and credited 3Form. I looked at 3Forms EcoGlass and Fisker's press release and it seems so similar that I am 99% certain Fisker is using their product and accidentally left out the registered mark. http://www.3-form.com/materials-glass-pressed-fossil_leaf_spade_pressed.php Here's a link to their press releases where some of this comes from. It would have been classier to skip the trademarking. http://karma.fiskerautomotive.com/news_items http://www.happycow.com.au/about_us.html
As an amateur woodworker, I know that there's not a lot of really good wood out there. These days most wood is farmed and due to the rapid tree growth, the grain isn't half as nice as that of trees that were around a hundred or more years ago. There's a big business in recovering those logs that sank after being harvested in the 19th century. The oxygen-poor environment at the bottom of the rivers and lakes does a fabulous job of preserving the logs. We woodworkers tend to foam at the mouth when we see this stuff.
I don't know what I find more humerous, the Happy Cow leather or the Ecoglass from naturally occurring sand. regrading the trees, the environmentalists in California will fight you if you try to harvest lumber following a forest fire, as you are removing important nutrients from the forest rather than letting them naturally decay and replenish the soil. I'm sure they would fight the other wood recovery methods mentioned in the Fiskar Eco blather.