Re: MR-Disc: Registration of Arms

[Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Poster: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

Eldred wrote:
  I seem to recall Corpora sez that the CoA is responsible for registering 
  unique arms....Which means that is exactly what the CoA is chartered to do.

Answering this would be dull, so I'll send the quotation to Eldred privately.

  
I had written (about the Red Cross being removed from the chirurgeon's badge):
  The chirurgeons badge issue wasn't heraldic at all.  The US
  Government signed a treaty that gives the Red Cross symbol protection
  far above and beyond that nornally given to symbols, and we violated
  it. Once the Red Cross took official notice, we had to change it.
  
Eldred answered:
  Actually, this may not technically be a heraldic issue, but if we classify 
  corporate
  trademarks and logos as a type of heraldry, the logical leap is not to 
  difficult to
  make.  If everyone who was a "registered" chiurgeon within the SCA was also
  a member of the Red Cross, would it have been an issue?

I'm reminded of a rather crude expression, so I'll use another: "If we had some
ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs."

Specifically, this was not an intellectual property issue of copyrights or
trademarks and servicemarks.  If it were, I would have mentioned Johnson and
Johnson, who have used a Red Cross in trademark since before this treaty, and
are still entitled to use it.  Intellectual property law isn't an issue here.

Regular boring laws, like the ones that control theft, traffic speed, and such,
were part of this.  A treaty was signed at the federal level, and it's just a
law.  That's all there is to it.
  
  In addition, the use of the red cross also seems to violate our own
  rules about conflict with mundane heraldry.  Isn't there a Rouge
  Croix Herald in the English College of Arms?

Nope.  The name is not the same as the picture.  It isn't a conflict.  Tut,
tut, don't you know the difference between emblazon and blazon?  (:-)
  
  Have another mead, Tibor.  At this rate you will be under the table by the
  end of the afternoon.  8^)

I wish.

	Tibor
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