Humourless maybe, but if North Face didn't exist, the guy wouldn't be making money right now.
I don't see a problem with being satirical, but surely after making $5,000 and receiving the notice from North Face you should be prepared to stop trading?
I don't see a problem with being satirical, but surely after making $5,000 and receiving the notice from North Face you should be prepared to stop trading?
It's somewhat puzzling to see this opinion posted on a news site that caters to entrepreneurs.
If he wants to stay in business, changing his brand to something vanilla is probably the worst thing he could do.
I cant see that the smart approach is to let them litigate... the comparative size of the companies means it is incredibly risky.
The time to quit is when the cost starts to outweigh the benefits, in this case that time may not have arrived (yet).
On the other hand, he's received global coverage and now has the potential to make a substantial amount of cash. There's also the real possibility that negative publicity will force the North Face to back down.
If IBM didn't exist you probably wouldn't have Microsoft - doesn't mean they shouldn't compete with each other.
Actually, no, I'm wrong, scratch that. What I meant to say was: it'll be a sad day for every entrepreneur without Chinese contacts.
There is a long history of such products, but that does not guarantee a defense.
The real point I was trying to make, though, is that a court might find in his favor, and it wouldn't really be "a sad day for every entrepreneur without Chinese contacts". It would be a reasonable decision. Finding against them might also be a reasonable decision, though I'm prone to want to protect satire as much as possible. :)
Why? If people are continuing to buy their stuff, they are obviously making things people want.