Saturday, November 16, 2002
Visa claims to own dictionary definition of "visa" found on
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

"... That's exactly what Visa is doing. They claim that the fame of Visa, the credit card, has so outstripped the fame of "visa," the English word, that anyone who names a company or product "visa" (even, presumably, a book called "How to Get an American H1B Work-Visa") is ripping off their intellectual property.

This is a stunningly bad law, and the lawmakers who wrote it need to be thoroughly spanked, but what's worse are the thieves at Visa who've decided that the anti-dilution standard is ready-made for expropriating small businesses of their domain-names. Bastards. ..."

Just another example of tORt hell What I want to know is when will common sense ever be of value again? I guess not as long as we have a legal system that is based on how much money one can spend. sigh