Ethics does not depend on the state. In many "backcountry" areas, the nearest LEO is several hours away. Even so, crime rates are lower than in many urban areas.
Nonsense, clearly David Ollila has provided the example to follow in such a situation.
Depending on a random federal bureaucracy to act as you would prefer rather than how they are set up to act is unlikely to satisfy. Private equity executives are human, if only barely so; they also have ethical duties. This episode is a test of the people who purchase clothing and equipment for outdoor activities. If we pass the test, backcountry.com will either change their unethical policies or go out of business. If we fail, we'll be buying ever-shittier products from an ever-shittier retailer.
Bureaucrats are also human. This is hardly a random federal agency, it is the one specifically devoted to handling this sort of thing. It is not too much to ask that they actually do that.
Not every company who gets sued is going to have the resources to fight it. It's also not reasonable to expect consumers to police the morality of every company they do business with. This is literally the purpose of having a government, to offload the responsibility of policing to people dedicated to it.
They are human, but they are not judges. When they act as judges, people have to spend eight years in federal court. [0] Much better for USPTO to let nearly everything through, trusting that most people are just trying to do business. When exceptions arise, they arise in the courts where they belong, but only after either A) someone infringes a valid trademark in some fashion that the courts can address and the holder decides that the courts should address that infringement or B) as in this case, frivolous dickheads decide to subject the public and the courts to some of their dickheaded frivolity.
You and I may have very different ideas about government. Do you support anti-BDS legislation? [1] Should people only speak the right speech, with the advance permission of the proper authorities? Fuck that, we have 1A for a reason. We have the right to say what we want and do business with whom we want. We also have the right not to speak and not to do business.
The entire concept of trademark is a creation of the state. If it no longer benefits the people, it should be fixed or eliminated. If cases like this were more common, I would support the latter alternative.
