Quote:
Originally Posted by st0ned
Oh, damn.
Adult or non, you own the trademark, and they are using your trademark to engage in illegal activities. Thought that would be a clean cut case.
Of course I am no lawyer though.
Good luck with it Shap. I bet it is a never ending battle going after sites like this.
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You guys don't understand trademark law. How many of you have been through a case. I have.
here are the eliments you need to prove:
The Court there announced eight specific elements to measure likelihood of confusion:
1. Strength of the mark
(pretty much like coca cola or something known well by everyone - not "twistys")
2. Proximity of the goods
(internet - negative here. It's not like a business opened up across the street with the same name.)
3. Similarity of the marks
(none, the site in questions doesn't even have twistys on it, it refers to it as "TD" in the logo).
4. Evidence of actual confusion
(big negative here, people aren't buying from that site thinking they are getting access to shap's porn).
5. Marketing channels used
(internet is way to broad, this one doesn't apply here).
6. Type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser
(its tv shows, games, and theater movies. not even close to porn)
7. Defendant's intent in selecting the mark
(maybe his nick name is twisty's no evidence to show he tried to benefit from shap's sites, not to mention he isn't in any way. negative here.)
8. Likelihood of expansion of the product lines[1]
(if they planed on doing porn videos it could be a problem, but one can not expect that they would. negative here.)
The site passes all 8 criteria of a trademark infringement.
I can open up a place called Twisty's and sell hot dogs and shap can't do shit about it. Here is a case about a guy who's last name is Nissan and he has a computer company "Nissan Computer", he owns nissan.com . Well Nissan the car company has been sueing him (and losing) for the past 8 years trying to get control of the domain:
http://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php Now nissan is a pretty famous name but apparently not famous enough. When your name is not famous it is ok for other people to use the same name for non competing products or services and as long as it meets the criteria i listed above.
Shap doesn't own the word twistys he owns twistys when it is in relation to online porn. Also notice his lawyers haven't sued the guy. They can (and probably did ) threaten him, but they wont take it to court, if they do they will waste money and lose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CYF
if you don't protect your trademark, you lose it.
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errr, your trademark has to be "violated" for you to be forced to protect it. If it is being violated and you don't protect it, correct. But this is not a case of trademark violation.