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:
A spokesperson for Ray-Ban’s parent company, Luxottica, told The Hill in an email that Paul’s presidential campaign had been selling the sunglasses without the company’s consent.
“After a formal request from us, they promptly removed the product from their site and agreed to cease any further use of our trademarks,” spokeswoman Jane Lehman told the publication.
Paul’s campaign declined to comment to The Hill on the product’s removal.
Ah! That famous Libertarian respect for intellectual property and other people’s work.
The GOP doesn’t care about anything other than making a profit.
Soon optical companies will have to grind special lenses just to magnify the GOP field to a visible size…
B-B-But FREEDOME!
The Rand campaign claims that it has made substantive improvements in the product by introducing a special coating that prevents conservatives from seeing any kind of objective reality. “We call it an “anti-tangible coating.” When asked whether or not conservatives need any such assistance, a Campaign spokeswoman said, it never hurts to have a back up.”