[anigbrowl]

That's a perfectly valid reason. Requiring a license for everything is pathological. Unlimited license for anything is also problematic, as you point out, but there should be some principle of balance between moral obligation and administrative overhead.

We already have corporate entities that claim ownership of particular words or colors, not because they invented them but because they laid claim to them and want to extract rents therefrom. Branding serves a rational commercial function, but when taken to extremes it begins a resemble a form of psychic territorial aggression.