The idea of punishing a mark holder by invalidating their mark presumes that trademarks exist as a benefit to the mark holder.
But they don’t. They exist as a benefit to consumers. This would be a misplaced punishment.
But they don’t. They exist as a benefit to consumers. This would be a misplaced punishment.
On the other hand, trademarks must provide identifying benefit to consumers, in order to be valid. Because this is the primary legal purpose and justification.
No one thought Tony the Tiger lived in Exxon gasoline, and yet the lawsuit exists.
There’s always some lawyer who will claim that a law applies even if it it found that doesn’t. In fact, this is entirely normal. Legal cases have two sides and only one will be found right.
The motivations of the lawyers in your examples are entirely different than the motivations of the lawmakers who wrote trademark law, and the judiciary that enforces it.
Let’s be clear: nobody created trademark law for the purpose of a cereal company getting rich off suing petroleum companies. In fact, those who established trademark law purposefully limited trademarks to a particular good or service exactly to prevent that.
The practical problem is that there’s no real way to test this until a case is brought. You might be able to bring your own crock-pot to market, but unfortunately the only tool to legally evaluate whether that’s okay is the legal system itself. I’m not sure there’s a good way around that other than making the legal system more accessible in general.
... don't provide value to the consumer either, because no one would intentionally infringe on such a mark. Your argument works equally well against your own claim as the one you are trying to refute.