Ray-Ban Asks Rand Paul To Remove Its Shades From His Campaign Store

[DonViejo]

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) may be at "the intersection of politics and cool" when he wears his signature Ray-Ban Wayfarers, but the sunglass company isn't keen on the presidential candidate slapping his name on its product.

Ray-Ban has asked Paul's campaign to remove "Rand"-branded Wayfarer sunglasses from its online store, The Hill reported Wednesday.

Paul's campaign team rolled out a robust online store that included apparel, signs and $1,000 signed pocket Constitutions when the senator launched his presidential campaign earlier this month.

The campaign store also included Ray-Ban sunglasses "indelibly marked with the Rand Brand" at a price of $150. Here's a screenshot of a cached version of the product page:

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ray-ban-rand-paul-campaign-store

[rurallib]

1. Rand Paul brings a stink to an old established brand

[frazzled]

2. How did he think they could get away with this?

Do they not know about product licensing? Or, cuddly libertarians that they are, do they just not care about such niceties? They probably think their "liberty" permits them to take someone's trademarked product and put their name on it without asking. For political purposes, of course.

There are reasons we need reasonable trademark and copyright protection. This is an example of why.