Wherein Chuck E. Cheese helps us understand trademark law
It doesn’t usually involve sledgehammers in a parking lot.
But Meredith Rose, an intellectual property attorney and a policy advocate, has surmised the policy’s purpose since her brief time working at a Middletown, New Jersey, Chuck E. Cheese’s in high school. “If you own this intellectual property writ large, you don’t want a secondary market to pop up. [You don’t want] people selling animatronic Chuck E.’s on eBay,” says Rose. “So if someone were to set up, say, an entire backyard-like sideshow thing where they replicate the animatronic band and all this swag, it might conceivably be viewed as not exerting control over your trademark.” In a future where the mascot is regularly seen outside Chuck E. Cheese’s, the company could lose the legal right to monopolize the character.
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