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An Early Retirement

blog.watsi.org

41–50 of 76 posts

Re: An Early Retirement

#41

Not knowing what Watsi was, this is ridiculous. Finding out they're an organization that gets donations for medical treatments, being threatened by an insurance company? Beyond ridiculous.

Health insurance companies in the United States don't exist to help people with medical problems. They exist to make as much money as possible.

Re: An Early Retirement

#43

Am I the only one who has serious question marks with Watsi? Portraying itself as a non-profit hocus-pocus third-world-helper, why does it have so many investors and such a big riced crew? I can't help but think how it is non-profit, but ONLY after investors and founders are paid good sums of money. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I am just saying it is shady.

They have "investors" (which are actually just donors and potentially board members) to fund their operations. And, in fact, they an operations fund that's separate from donations made for patients. All donations being made towards patients are used exclusively for patient care.

Re: An Early Retirement

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is they need to get rid of the shirts soon, or else they can no longer use them.

From my understanding of the tee shirt company they are using, all these shirts are going to be custom made per the amount of orders made.

Very interesting.

Re: An Early Retirement

#45
post #41

Not knowing what Watsi was, this is ridiculous. Finding out they're an organization that gets donations for medical treatments, being threatened by an insurance company? Beyond ridiculous.

Health insurance companies in the United States don't exist to help people with medical problems. They exist to make as much money as possible.

Everybody's got to make a living ... even your doctor.

Re: An Early Retirement

#46

I'm guessing part of the agreement is that Watsi doesn't publicly "out" the insurance company. Well, we have lots of good writers here, some with an audience, but without any legal association to Watsi. Let's make this so costly that no mega-corporation dares to bully non-profits in this way again.

> Let's make this so costly that no mega-corporation dares to bully non-profits in this way again.

Why?

Re: An Early Retirement

#47
post #38
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional note, trademark lawyers are often obligated to try and sue people over trademarks, even if they'd rather not, because if they don't zealously defend their trademark, it's considered 'weakened' and that can then become evidence against them in some future case when a different party infringes. So the blue cross people were doing what they had to do. It sure is funny though how almost every law is interpr…

It's almost like most of our laws were written by a bunch of lawyers.

And knowing who paid the lawyers is an effective tl;dr -- what the law truly seeks to accomplish.

Re: An Early Retirement

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, using a plus-symbol for healthcare-related things really shouldn't be protectable under trademark law, considering it's been in use since the 1864 Geneva Convention.

It's just the blue plus symbol. Other plus symbols are used by other companies without issue.

No I believe the Red Cross has international protection over the use of a red plus symbol.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblems_of_the_International_Re...

Re: An Early Retirement

#49
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed the same company as you. However, I fall on the other side of the analysis, that Watsi is 1. not interfering with any trademarks registered by BCBS (all BCBS registered marks, which I found in TESS, are word/design marks, which means the blue cross on its own is not protected, it is only protected when it is accompanied by the word mark); and 2. otherwise not causing any confusion in the markplace (for exam…

An additional note, trademark lawyers are often obligated to try and sue people over trademarks, even if they'd rather not, because if they don't zealously defend their trademark, it's considered 'weakened' and that can then become evidence against them in some future case when a different party infringes. So the blue cross people were doing what they had to do. It sure is funny though how almost every law is interpr…

The alternative is the patent situation where you can turn up a 15 year old patent that hasn't been enforced and sue everybody over it.

If patent enforcement worked like trademark enforcement, then trolls would have a much harder time.

Re: An Early Retirement

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No trash burning, just a little party to send off our blue logo in style :)

You should burn an effigy of a man as an informal protest against "the man"...you could call him the "burning guy" or something like that..

burning cross?
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