ABC News Online reports on the New South Wales Government's concern regarding an application to register MADE IN AUSTRALIA as a trade mark. The Small Business Minister has claimed that the mark would have a devastating effect on the economy, if businesses were no longer able to use the term MADE IN AUSTRIALIA on their products.
The IPKat wonders if this isn't just a storm in a billy can. Anybody can apply for the most descriptive or non-distinctive trade mark on earth, causing a furore as he does so, but that doesn't mean that it will be registered. The IPKat also wonders whether the applicant applied for a word mark, or merely for a figurative mark, for which the scope of proteciton may be narrow (he directs readers to a comparably German case concerning the mark TAX FREE FOR TOURISTS reporting in the ETMRs a number of years ago).
