Comments | darrelx: Poll: ConFurence trademark protection

darrelx

Poll: ConFurence trademark protection

Aug 14, 2007 15:21

Poll Should I Protect the "ConFurence" trademark?

Guiness published their 2008 book and included an entry naming Anthrocon as the largest furry fan group. Unfortunately, they included in their writeup the following text: "Furries, as they are known, meet a confurences and share their love of animal anthropomorphism ( Read more... )

guiness, poll, legal, furry, conventions, confurence, law, trademark

Comments 13

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darrelx August 16 2007, 02:46:23 UTC

If they were talking about a tech conference and spelled it that way, sure, I'd call it a typo. However, their use implies that "Confurence" is a generic term for any furry convention, which it is not, and therefore a misuse of the service mark.

It's the same as if someone said "All Cokes taste awful because of the carbonation" and was pointing to a pallet of Pepsi and 7-Up sodas. Using a registered service mark to describe a category of products that the mark does not refer to is infringement. "Furries ... meet at Confurences" is exactly the same type of infringement.

Now... if they had put it in the past tense, they could have arguably been talking about past ConFurence events, but they didn't... and the fact that they italicized the "fur" in Confurence means it was no typo, it was intentionally spelled that way.

darrelx August 16 2007, 02:47:36 UTC

...and yes, I'd love to sell it via licensing to protect me from liability. See the other replies in this thread.

badjahsensei August 14 2007, 23:05:26 UTC

I'd say to protect it, if just because of the political weight (i.e. the sins of the Merlino days) of the name--not to mention the possible common vs proper noun issues, like what you saw in the GBoWR.

kevin_standlee August 14 2007, 23:13:52 UTC

If you're not going to use it anymore, why not just abandon it? Then it will show up in the USPTO database as abandoned and dead. That does mean that someone else could attempt to register it, of course.

If you don't use the mark and defend it. you will eventually lose it anyway. Unlike copyrights, trade/service marks are "use it or lose it." That's why you see me, in my WSFS Mark Protection Committee chair hat, sometimes chasing after people improperly using one of the WSFS marks.

darrelx August 16 2007, 02:39:12 UTC

Because of the current state of furry fandom politics in Southern California, if I abandoned it outright, someone would probably grab the name and abuse it (like signing a hotel contract in the name of "Confurence" without actually having a corporate entity by that name)... and unless I take *active* steps to abandon the name, if any liability arises from the hypothetical misuse, an eager attorney might try to go after me.

However, pursuing Guiness Book for misuse might prove expensive as well.

Thus, my dilemma.

kevin_standlee August 16 2007, 05:27:43 UTC

Well, IANAL, but I suspect that if someone wanted to pry the mark away from you, s/he could do so by starting a convention by that name, filing a new mark registration, and then contesting the rejection from USPTO on the grounds of non-use. It's messy, though.

I understand wanting to hold on to a mark to prevent mis-use. WSFS does that as well, with NASFiC, although of course we do hold NASFiCs periodically but erratically.

(I wonder, if Montreal wins their 2009 bid, when I'll hear the first "So where's the 2009 NASFiC?" question.)

kitarra August 15 2007, 00:14:31 UTC

I don't think you personally should protect it. I know you own it, but you are not the one that came up with it. If anyone should protect it, it's Mark and Rodney. If they wish to allow it to fall into public domain it is their choice.

Personally I would be flattered by the fact that something that I was a part of (and I was a part of CF for many many many years) became the name for every gathering of that type. It's a great accomplishment.

darrelx August 16 2007, 02:29:56 UTC

Mark and Rodney never formed a business entity to run ConFurence, and never registered any kind of service mark. Neither has anyone in regards to Califur, against my pressing advice, which is the main reason I won't have anything to do with them (that, and the fact that 90% of SoCal Furry fandom prefers to think that I killed ConFurence on purpose ( ... )

kitarra August 16 2007, 04:19:15 UTC

I do see the issue. Believe me. However the likelyhood that someone with confuse A confurence with ConFurence is very small. Especially for litigious purposes.

So again my advice would be to let it go and be flattered you were a part of something that made it into the vernacular. That's kinda cool.

And yes I do understand what and how you got the ConFurence name. We know the same people. I got several version of the story.

As for you killing CF....no...it was already dying and saving it would have taken a minor miracle. You just resuscitated it for a bit.

jubeloh August 15 2007, 01:39:31 UTC

Who created the name is irrelevant. You are the owner, the decision to act (or not) rests solely with you.

Failure to act now will mean that you have relinquished any claim to the unique-ness of the word as a trademarked entity.

I understand that you have no plans to restart ConFurence at this time but who knows if you may decide to restart Confurence some time down the road.