> Nielsen, while saying “everything is on hold,” stopped short of promising to terminate the petitions for cancellation the company’s IPLA attorney John Kim filed with the USPTO. Nielsen said he would be reaching out to every business targeted in those petitions to discuss how they can work together.
So, they still think they own the generic term "backcountry" and that others need their permission to use it. Nothing has changed.
Too little too late. Been munching on popcorn watching all my camping and hiking forums and communities coming together saying they are done buying from them.
Not OP, but dropping all trademark enforcement attempts on the generic term "backcountry" would be the minimum (them using "backcountry.com" should have been as far as they got).
Also, abandon all existing legal action based on that generic term.
It seems like a legitimate start. IANAL but you do have to defend your trademark or risk losing it. This is an inherent danger of using a common word in a trademark...
Trademarks need to be limited to being consumer protection: A company can only own a word or design or color scheme to the extent it prevents bad actors from fooling customers with deceptively similar names and trade dress. This has the positive side-effect of preventing those same bad actors from harming the company which owns the trademark, but that should be seen as a side-effect, and not as the primary purpose of trademarks.
However, if you look at the trademarks themselves, they have very limited scope and also require specific visual differentiators. The word "Adobe" isn't trademarked, but so that I don't buy the wrong Adobe which is actually malware, it is illegal to advertise or commercially distribute creative digital software bearing the name Adobe and copying its visual likeness. But I could start my own Spanish-themed footwear company called Adobe Footwear. Adobe itself is not trademarked.
But the company isn’t withdrawing 50+ requests that the U.S. Patent and Trademark office cancel the trademarks of other companies, Backcountry.com CEO Jonathan Nielsen said in an interview with The Sun.
What are you not buying? That it was bad marketing?
There are no underlying emotions its a big company driven by money.
The only thing you can buy is that they said the thing they did publicly. Now they might align their business with that statement for a while.
So, they still think they own the generic term "backcountry" and that others need their permission to use it. Nothing has changed.