Hacker News Reader

Comment by ImprovedSilence | Hacker News Reader

huh. TIL. Never knew that was a generic name.

In Australia, it was considered a type of shoe like a "boot". We got really annoyed when a US company trademarked an Australian product and then stopped Australian companies from selling it under the name they had been using for decades.

Sort of like this exact case...

Thank you for posting this. A timely reminder that the problem isn't China, or any country in specific - the problem is greed.

It's not even closely related to any brand here. It's completely generic. Most of the time the ugg boots producers are really small businesses and you purchase locally made ones.

A possible solution would be the [australian] government trademarking their traditional product names or a similar variant, and then acting as umbrella for thousands of australian small companies. Granting a free use of the term and defense against predatory practices. A sort of shared trademark.

Maybe should be named uggstralian boots from now on.

Why should it be named uggstralian now? It's an offensive suggestion. Do you think generic American words,like Pickup truck or Hamburger, should be able to be trademarked and then America would need to change the word?

> Why should it be named uggstralian now?

Because "ugg boots" is now a trademark, therefore unavailable for everybody else, whereas "hamburger" is not.

Can you provide a better name?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com