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In general, you don't have any obligation to enforce your rights.

There is the well-known exception of trademark law, but that's in the nature of the matter. If PepsiCo sells Coca-Cola and the Coca-Cola company doesn't react, then the trade mark obviously doesn't allow customers to identify genuine Coca-Cola.



Your example seems a bit off. Yes, Coca-cola is not required to enforce their trademark via legal means; however, they may lose the ability to prove infringement of the mark later (even in another case) if they do not police use of the mark. I think there was also a case or course of legal thought by some judges that the mark's owner owed a duty (fiduciary maybe?) to actively protect the mark from infringement or risk losing the trademark rights altogether.


You don't have an obligation and in theory (and only in theory) it doesn't matter but a history of doing it anyway sure as shit helps in court.


Go to YouTube. You will find lots of old BBC stuff; the BBC largely doesn’t bother with active enforcement for anything before 1980 or so.

Now, start a website selling Doctor Who episodes, and see how far your incomplete enforcement argument gets you with the court.


That is still consistent enforcement of the Doctor Who copyrights though.


Does it? This is the first I've heard of it.


Theoretically no, but the court is more likely to side with you if your lawyer can go down the list checking off each reason this lawsuit is like the last one that you won.


So actually no, then? It actually won't be held against your case. It's just that you don't have a template yet, you don't have a precedent?

Yeah, that's entirely completely different.




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