Trademark Occupy Wall Street

On Tuesday a story broke that a couple from Long Island had filed for a trademark on the slogan “Occupy Wall Street” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The couple’s basic premise, as you might expect, was to sell “sweatshirts, T-shirts, bumper stickers and hobo bags, among other merchandise.”    

For those of you familiar with the movement and its basic guiding principles, this effort to trademark the phrase probably fills you with a bizarre cocktail of feelings. Words like irony, hypocrisy, cluelessness and heartburn all seem to jump to mind.

It’s OK, though, insists Robert Maresca, the gentleman that filed for the trademark, because he is a strong supporter of the movement. He just wants to make sure somebody with the movement’s best interest in mind filed for the trademark as a preemptive move. In his words, “Somebody else might have gotten a hold of it.”

Perhaps Maresca means somebody else who is looking to make a personal profit off a movement that finds its genesis in a reaction to the excesses of corporatism, capitalism and greed?  They certainly wouldn’t want anybody to do that.

To be fair, Maresca has said it is his “intent to have (Occupy Wall Street supporters) get the maximum benefit possible after any expenses.”

How very noble of him to give back the proceeds to the very people who generated the movement in the first place.  

Maresca has also said if granted the trademark, he might be willing to sell it to OWS members, as long as the group paid all of his associated expenses.

Again, his generosity knows no bounds.

Maybe it really is the Marescas’ intention to hand over the theoretical trademark to the OWS movement and reap no personal benefit, but even that strikes me as remarkably out of touch with everything for which the movement stands.   

In my own view, OWS is in many ways supposed to be a movement of the people. It is a broad-based backlash against an economic system that seems to radically favor the few versus the many. Moreover, it is a backlash against personal and corporate greed.

Even if Marescas’ motives are as pure as he portrays them to be, he and his wife’s actions do not in any way show familiarity or solidarity with a movement he
purportedly supports.

Taking the slogan that is now being used globally to signify frustration with capitalism in its current form and commercializing it is either cynicism of the worst kind or utter ignorance.  

So far, protesters have been less than enthusiastic and have noted there are already screen-printing stations and people making unique OWS clothing and gear for free.
Now, that seems closer to the anti-corporate image of the movement.

I hope the OWS protesters continue to react strongly against the trademark move and hold fast to the ideals they support — they’re worth the fight.  

­— jontodd@indiana.edu