At Cross Purposes
The folks who brought us Band-Aids and baby oil have a bone to pick with the world’s most recognizable relief organization. Johnson & Johnson doesn’t think that the Red Cross has rights to its . . . er . . . red cross.
In the suit, J&J asked the court to force the Red Cross to have “all licensed products with the red-cross emblem destroyed and to permanently enjoin all sales of products bearing the emblem on first-aid, safety-preparedness and related products.”
The Red Cross CEO, Mark Everson, called the action “bizarre” and “obscene.”
Johnson & Johnson claims to have been sporting the image since the late 1800s, which makes it boss of the cross. Next, they plan to go after M*A*S*H reruns (that thing was everywhere!) and maybe they’ll take on the Swiss flag, because they’re not fooling anyone just because they’ve reversed the colors.
Let’s do the math: Classic household brand in just about everyone’s medicine cabinet targets an organization that spends most of its time filling sandbags and collecting blood donations. Someone over at J&J has been snorting the talcum powder.
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Jill said,
on August 10th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Surely there is some kind of statute of limitations here!? If they’d gone after them 50 years ago I’d be more sympathetic. But I wonder if they were first to use it. I was poking around online about the history of the red cross symbol and stuff I found was dating it back to the middle of the 1800s, which seems like its use would predate J&J’s “late 1800s.”
Wendy said,
on November 26th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Hi Jay -
This is Wendy from the American Red Cross. Just thought I’d update you on events surrounding the lawsuit J&J filed against the Red Cross.
A couple of weeks ago the judge dismissed a key part of J&J’s case.
We’re hoping this nudges J&J to drop the suit.
Here’s the ARC press release from the recent ruling:
http://www.redcross.org/pressrelease/0,1077,0_314_7242,00.html