Trademark is pretty different from copyright and patents. This is because claiming to be another party or claiming your product is their product is fraud.

>Trademark is pretty different from copyright and patents.

Trademark is intellectual property, you stated:

>intellectual property is an invalid form of ownership and shouldn't exist at all

>This is because claiming to be another party or claiming your product is their product is fraud.

It would not be fraud, it would be infringement of intellectual property.

But what is the practical difference if you manufacture/sell computers under your mark/logo, or if you are an author selling your book and I begin reproducing your book and selling it to the public? What if I begin reproducing Harry Potter original works or even create my own Harry Potter works and adopt the authors copyright pen name?

That's not what grandparent claimed, though. "Intellectual property" is an umbrella term for copyright, trademarks, patents, design protection laws, etc. throwaway_law's retort seems justified to me.

I am the grandparent. I should have excluded trademark when I referred to IP but let me make it completely clear. By IP I am referring to copyright and patents.

There is within reason just cause to criticize trademark as it is exists now from an IP abolitionists perspective - trademarks are often liberally given out for nebulous concepts and the process of overturning a generic trademark is, like almost anything related to legal proceedings, outside the purview of most average people.

The act of trying to deceive people through imitation of another product should fall plainly under a better written statute against impersonation, slander, and deceptive advertising. You shouldn't be registering trademarks or having the bureaucracy associated - all you need to do is sue someone you think is trying to mislead in imitating your branding under such expanded laws to get them to stop.

Because inevitably it comes down to the interpretations of people on who is the "real" product, whatever it name may be. Trademark registration gives you a date to go by but that doesn't guarantee use of the name or nuance about presentation aside the trademark. It still ends up being in front of a judge even with a trademark in hand, and like with all the IP offices of government the trademark office is usually understaffed, overworked, and not capable of accurately auditing all incoming requests for brand protection or to verify issued trademarks are being used for their intended purpose.

The primary reason for the original creation of 'letters patent' is to prevent all of human knowledge from being hidden behind trade secrets. We can debate how long, or in what form patents should be granted. There are many inefficiencies in the current system, but granting patents is a useful government endeavor because it requires the party who wishes to receive the patent to publicly disclose their discovery in which they want patented. You should consider this before you throw out patents as a non-useful feature. It is hard to have a conversation about IP in general when Trademarks, Patents, and Copyright vary so highly.

It's all a matter of who you (or customers) want to trust. In the case you mentioned, we'll need better way to source what material / virtual content is produced by whom and where.