So Many® Mistakes at Bakker.com

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Bakker is a vendor of plants that operates online and by mail order.  The company annoyed me some years ago by sharing my details with third parties without my permission.  People who buy plants by mail order are quite an attractive demographic and so it's a nice little sideline for the company.  I ended up getting a lot of junk mail as a direct result of this and I eventually traced it back to Bakker.  I was in the market for some plants today and so I e-mailed to the company just to make sure that their practices had since improved.  The reply I got was not conclusive enough to make me part with my money.

While there I noticed some very nice clematis that go by the name of So Many®.  I was struck by the registered trade mark symbol.  It is unlikely that such a trade mark would be registered in Ireland since it is merely descriptive.  It is actually an offence in Ireland to use this symbol for a mark that is not registered under Section 94 of the Trade Marks Act.

94.—(1) It shall be an offence for a person—

 (a) falsely to represent that a mark is a registered trade mark, or

 (b) to make a false representation as to the goods or services for which a trade mark is registered,

 knowing or having reason to believe that the representation is false.

 (2) For the purposes of this section, the use in the State in relation to a trade mark—

 (a) of the word “registered”, or

 (b) of any other word or symbol importing a reference (express or implied) to “registration”,

 shall be deemed to be a representation as to registration under this Act unless it is shown that the reference is to registration elsewhere than in the State and that the trade mark is in fact so registered for the goods or services in question.

 (3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,000 and, in the case of a continuing offence, to a further fine not exceeding £100, for every day on which the offence continues.

I was busy composing a polite e-mail to the company when the reply to my earlier e-mail arrived.  I didn't bother sending it.  Perhaps I should e-mail the Garda instead.


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