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from the don't-worry...-just-take-two-Bayer®-asprin-and...-oh,-wait dept.
Monsanto, a brand name activists love to hate, will disappear as Bayer takes over:
These days Monsanto is shorthand for, as NPR's Dan Charles has put it, "lots of things that some people love to hate": Genetically modified crops, which Monsanto invented. Seed patents, which Monsanto has fought to defend. Herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, which protesters have sharply criticized for its possible health risks. Big agriculture in general, of which Monsanto was the reviled figurehead.
And soon Monsanto will be no more. Bayer, the German pharmaceutical giant and pesticide powerhouse, announced in 2016 it would be buying Monsanto in an all-cash deal for more than $60 billion. Now, as the merger approaches, Bayer has confirmed what many suspected: In the merger, the politically charged name "Monsanto" will be disappearing. The combined company will be known simply as Bayer, while product names will remain the same. The move is not exactly a surprise — it makes sense that Bayer might want to weed out some of the intense negative associations associated with the Monsanto brand. In a way, it's an indication of how successful anti-Monsanto protesters have been in shaping public perception.
In the company's latest statement, Bayer implicitly acknowledged how hostile debates over genetically modified crops and other agricultural products have become. "We aim to deepen our dialogue with society. We will listen to our critics and work together where we find common ground," the chairman of Bayer's board of management, Werner Baumann, said in the statement. "Agriculture is too important to allow ideological differences to bring progress to a standstill. We have to talk to each other. We need to listen to each other. It's the only way to build bridges."
Also at Reuters.
Previously: Bayer AG Offers to Buy Monsanto
Bayer Purchases Monsanto for Around $66 Billion
Roundup: Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93M to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens
RoundUp Glyphosate Found to Cause Kidney Failure and Elude Tests
Cancer Hazard vs. Risk - Glyphosate
Use of Dicamba-Resistant Monsanto Crops Leads to Soybean Death
GMO Grass That 'Escaped' Defies Eradication, Divides Grass Seed Industry
Glyphosate Linked to Liver Damage
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:34PM (1 child)
I don't think so. On the Wikipedia page about Bayer [wikipedia.org] it is said that
The "until after World War I" is relevant here, since we learn in a later section:
I'd expect that included the trademark "Heroin".
Looking at the Wikipedia page about Heroin [wikipedia.org] seems to confirm that suspicion, but it's marked with “citation needed”:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday June 05 2018, @08:05PM
It's been amazing what's coming out on WikiPedia. Sometimes very hard to tell which are real and which are fake. But they say that Bayer stopped selling Heroin in 1910. Which was before the war. A little bit before, right? And possibly it's very hard to keep a trademark on something you don't sell. Or maybe they didn't keep up with the legal on that one. Because why pay the registration, why pay for lawyers, on something that you stopped selling? Money going out, no money coming in, not a smart way to do business.
And maybe that's why they lost it, or maybe they got schlonged by the VERY UNFAIR treaty. A lot of folks got schlonged by that one. But if you noticed, they're still Bayer in Germany. And they've always been Bayer in Germany and in many places. And they kept all their trademarks in Germany and in many places.
You've heard of the Podesta GMAIL, right? That one was hacked very badly. Well, in Germany GMAIL is something else. It's not the Google EMAIL. Because somebody had that trademark before Google thought of it.
But I don't think they sell Heroin any more. And possibly that is a mistake. Because two things that are very annoying about kids are the diapers and the noise. The diapers they grow out of -- hopefully they grow out of those, the noise they don't. And when they have a cough, very annoying to be around that. And it spreads germs like you wouldn't believe. So a very strong cough syrup would be great to have, folks would pay a lot for that.
And Monsanto, everybody used to know Monsanto. You buy a suit, you buy a carpet, you buy a sofa, you would ask for Wear-Dated by Monsanto. And you could throw the craziest parties. A little cleaning -- very easy -- and your suit, your carpet, your sofa were PERFECTO. No stains, no smells. It was magnificent. But, they stopped selling that. And now nobody remembers Monsanto. Our great farmers remember, they love Monsanto because it's the best seeds and the best pesticides. Trust me, we all eat them. But, can you go to a restaurant and tell the waiter, "bring me something by Monsanto"? You can't. Bayer could make Monsanto great again, they could bring back the double-knit polyester suits that we love so much. And they'd become very very rich. But, they won't. That's too bad.