Remember back with Carter’s Big Mac post, I said we’d explore more things? Here is one of those posts!
The enforcement of laws depends on who made the law. If a city counsel created the ordinance, then it applies to that city – and no others. Same with counties, states, and countries. Sometimes an organization helps set out some templates so those entities can have some guidance and there can be some uniformity among the multitude of legislatures. For states, the Uniform Commercial Code, Uniform Trade Secret Act, and the model Public-Health Emergency Authority Act are examples. States don’t have to enact them, and when they do, they often modify the bejeezus out of them. But it can help companies that do business in multiple places to have similar expectations across locations.
Sometimes countries get together and agree to treaties. You see this a lot related to trademarks, patents, and copyrights. In that case, everyone does enact pretty darn close to the same thing. That’s the whole point. But each country still gets to decide what is happening. Some treaties help us be able to apply for trademarks in multiple countries, and some countries concede more control to central bodies than others.
For example, the U.S. lets people start their application in another country, but before they get a registration here, they have to go through the whole process of the application. There are some loopholes that we sometimes exploit, but it still is quite the process. Other countries allow more of an “express train.” Once registered, however, the country’s trademark laws truly take over. Want to enforce it? Gotta go with what the country says. No express lanes there.
McDonald’s sells Big Macs in a lot of countries. A lot, a lot. So they have to keep track of what each of those countries does for applications, registrations, and enforcement. And then what McDonald’s is doing to match those laws. And that’s just for trademarks! Same is true for food regulations, real estate, and much, much more. No small feat.
Thanks for reading, Erin.