what was the reason for introducing trade marks after WWII?

Question

although true TM were inplace before WWII what was the main reason they were introduced after WWII?

Answer 1

Trade marks were in place well before WWII.

They go back to the 19th Century

Answer 2

Weatherman is correct, trademarks go back to the 19th century. They first started being widely used from about 1915 onwards (I base this on a collection of pre-1925 women's magazines I have. In one of them the entire issue of trademarks is discussed).

It is not coincidental that a trademarking started at about the same time the mail-order industry in this country took off.

When you were buying all of your sugar, tea, etc from Mr Jones on the corner, you could place a certain amount of trust in his integrity as a merchant. You knew that his tea was good, but if you made your purchases at Mr Brown's down by the depot, very often you got substandard goods.

This type of personal judgement could not be made when you were ordering goods from a catalog house in Chicago. Although Sears, etc offered to stand behind anything they sold, many consumers started looking for specific manufacturers as reliable sources of goods.

Let's say you're a farm wife in Butte, Montana, and you have always ordered Schottzenpotz shoes from Sears because your neighbor recommended them and you have found them to be reliable. One day you get a bad pair of shoes and you write Sears about it.

Sears tells Mr. Schottzenpotz, who finds out that a competitor is making cheap shoddy shoes and selling them under the Schottzenpotz name, which is perfectly legal because Mr Schottzenpotz has never bothered to trademark his shoes.

Mr. Schottzenpotz legally applies for the trademark "Ever-Sure" and starts stamping his shoes and his shoeboxes with that name as well as a logo of a boot carrying a rifle at the position of attention.

From now on not only will that farm wife out in Butte (and thousands of other customers) know for sure that she's really buying Mr. Schottzenpotz's shoes, but Schottzenpotz can take his competitor to court and win damages as well as force him legally to stop producing shoes under that name.

It protected both buyer and seller.

Answer 3

I could be wrong, but I believe that the 'trade marks' go back to the beginning of the 19th century

Answer 4

Trade marks were in 1900 onwards.It started clonisation by Britain.Inorder to distinguish manfaturers of quality products and cheap inferior products it started.Later on govt and military started purchasing only goods with trade marks.Now trade mark and brand names are absolutely essential for any business.