One of my favorite blogs, Techdirt, writes today about the California legislature rewriting their definition of trademark law to be more like copyright law.  These laws are meant to serve two completely different functions.  Mike Masnick at Techdirt writes:

Both copyright and patents were designed as limited monopolies to provide incentives to creators of content or ideas. That is, it’s a “necessary evil” for the sake of promoting content and ideas. Trademark law, on the other hand, is supposed to be about consumer protection. The idea is that Bob can’t pretend that Bob’s Cola is really Coca-Cola and mislead you into buying a different product than the one you thought you were buying.

This California law would turn trademarks into something not unlike copyrights, removing fair use rights and holding websites like eBay liable for selling trademarked products.