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by msla 2414 days ago
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.