[thelist] copyright help

David Kutcher david_kutcher at hotmail.com
Sat Apr 27 11:30:00 CDT 2002


Jake-

He can "mention it to his lawyers" all he wants, but while he just
established the LLC, he doesn't have the grounds of misplaced trademark and
dilution of existing brand.  If you feel overwhelmed as a student, maybe
this'll make you feel better.  His registered corporate address is an apt.
in brooklyn.  I could go over there and egg his house...

But seriously.  1. He doesn't know what he's talking about and 2. He's
bluffing.  If he's a newly established LLC (which stands for Limited
Liability Corporation btw), it's doubtful he has the time and money to raise
the rates for a lawyer to even try to win this.  There is no legal reason
why you would need to give the domain to him unless you blatantly registered
it as a squatter.

Tell him that you're sorry that he registered a company with the same name
as your web site, but that you're not renaming your site unless convinced
otherwise.  And just so you know, his TM (the name "BionicMonkey") isn't
registered yet, and I highly doubt he registered it in the UK.  Also, he
never copyrighted the name in 2000, but bought the domain name in 2000.  Big
difference.  I also just searched the loc.gov database and "Bionic Monkey"
is not a registered name.

David
www.confluentforms.com



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