"Black Friday" dates all the way back to Philadelphia,
1869. Used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and
vehicle traffic on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday has
captured the minds, trollies and wallets of shoppers and become a
worldwide shopping craze.
Many have tried to register the name by means of a trademark
– making the profiteer's attraction to protecting the
name obvious. A Hong Kong-based company managed to successfully
register the Black Friday trademark in Germany, covering a broad
range of products, including retail goods. The trademark owner and
licensee tried to enforce the trademark rights and stop others from
using the term.
The aggressively litigious approach by the trademark owner
elicited much reaction in the German retail market, with many
retailers changing their marketing campaigns to similar names like
"Super Friday" instead of "Black Friday".
