John McCoy had something to say about trademarks over on his blog, Pathetic Fallacy. I’ll pull just a little bit out here because it really sums up the problems with many laws protecting IP in the USA right now.
The problems with this line of thought are: 1) it treats people like idiots and 2) it’s a protection of the interests of the powerful against the interests of the weak, which would seem to be an inversion of the goals of trademark.
Substitute “patents” or “copyright” for “trademark” and I think it still holds true. I would like that to change.