Comment by kragen

copyright is subject to broad international recognition under a couple of very widespread treaties, and the pct provides a weaker way to obtain the same patent in a smaller set of countries, but trademark is an explicitly local thing. even in the usa, a trademark in one town may not be valid in the next (think 'jones's 24-hour laundry') and even registered trademarks are often only registered in the trademark office of one state. (every state has its own trademark office, in addition to the federal pto.) there is no trademark equivalent of the berne convention or the pct

so the idea of a paraguayan company, in paraguay, infringing a us trademark, is legal hogwash. mickey is a disney trademark in paraguay only to the extent that the paraguayan government decides to grant it to them, a decision that should be made on the basis of, among other things, existing uses by other companies. this is a fundamental and intentional feature of trademark law in every jurisdiction i am familiar with, not a bug

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to a significant extent trademark law is arbitrary in the same way traffic laws are. there's no objective reason, nothing justifiable according to some kind of natural law, that says you should drive on the left side of the road, or stop when the traffic light turns red rather than green. if everyone else is driving on the right side of the road, or stopping when their light turns green and your light turns red, that would be a better thing to do. the law in these cases is merely establishing a schelling point that allows a large society to coordinate their actions through more or less random but well-known decisions

the justification for trademark law is to protect consumers from inferior goods bearing the name of a reputable maker, but made by someone else. for this purpose it reserves particular names and logos for the exclusive use of particular makers. which particular names and logos are reserved for which particular makers is essentially arbitrary; what matters is that it be relatively consistent over time, so that consumers aren't buying good mickey-branded bread from the paraguayan mickey company one day and adulterated mickey-branded bread licensed by disney the next

(you can argue that to some extent modern trademark law is failing at this job, due to notorious cases of perfectly legal line extension fraud—such as exploding tempered-soda-lime-glass pyrex, saran-free saran wrap, pseudoephedrine-free sudafed, kaopectate without kaolin or pectin, and generic t-shirts bearing a designer's licensed brand—or the widespread phenomenon of private equity firms buying a quality brand and replacing its products with inferior replacements. but that's the justification for its existence)