I just think you’re misunderstanding the problem, it’s not that trademarks are polluting the space of available terms - it’d be ridiculously punitive to tax McDonalds billions to trademark the Big Mac, Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar - it’s that a single trademark like “Monster Energy” can be abused well outside the domain it should apply within. And also that trademarks are being granted/enforced in domains they shouldn’t, like in colors or fonts.
The way trademarks are supposed to work is that your “Monster Energy” trademark applies within the domain, so you can block “Super Monster Soda” but have no case against “Fetish Monsters Diaper Playpack”. Similarly I think it’s fair that a big concrete, skinny clown holding a hamburger at a burger shop (with a big yellow capital M sign, selling Big Macs and McFlurries) across the street from an actual McDonalds would be penalized as trademark infringement without McDonald’s having to pay billions a year in trademark costs.
The way trademarks are supposed to work is that your “Monster Energy” trademark applies within the domain, so you can block “Super Monster Soda” but have no case against “Fetish Monsters Diaper Playpack”. Similarly I think it’s fair that a big concrete, skinny clown holding a hamburger at a burger shop (with a big yellow capital M sign, selling Big Macs and McFlurries) across the street from an actual McDonalds would be penalized as trademark infringement without McDonald’s having to pay billions a year in trademark costs.
What we need to disincentivize and prevent is this: https://thehustle.co/monster-energy-thinks-it-owns-the-word-...