On Wednesday, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson filed a lawsuit against the American Red Cross over the use of their trademark, the red cross symbol.

While the Red Cross uses the well-known badge for all of their activities, Johnson & Johnson doesn’t seem to like the fact that the Organization started working with licensing partners in 2004, for creating products such as combs and toothbrushes, but also preparedness related and first aid products. A Johnson & Johnson spokesman said,

After more than a century of strong cooperation in the use of the red cross trademark… we were very disappointed to find that the American Red Cross started a campaign to license the trademark to several businesses for commercial purposes.

(from The Washington Post)

Johnson & Johnson’s management hopes that if there will be a hype about the law suit, it’ll settle quickly. Unfortunately, they could be right.

I find this very interesting. J&J does own the red cross symbol trademark but can’t do anything about the American Red Cross using it for their Corporate Identity, as the trademark is filed for the purpose of pharmaceutical goods only (please correct me if I’m wrong about that). So they use the awareness of the symbol to sell products, and call it “cooperation”.

The money the American Red Cross receives out of the licensing to third companies is fully reinvested in its humanitarian programs and services.

“Fuck charity! We’re losing profit here.”
Now, that the piggy-back riders from Johnson & Johnson encounter their Red Cross horse giving birth to a foal they cannot control, they unwrap their whip.

What a great story! It represents the global idea of capitalism quite well. Poor world.