Can You Trademark Someone's Island Name And Then Shut Them Down?

There are just no depths of nastiness to which some people won't go.

If the Czech owners called their sim "Other World Kingdom" just like their real world micronation, all the money and vindictive effort this American woman has gone through to use the initials would be rendered moot.

She is lying to you. She has APPLIED for the trademark on "OWK" as of November 14, 2008 (Application number: 77614614). The doesn't own anything. An application is NOT a registration. It normally takes from 12 to 18 months for a trademark application to be registered. And that's if there are no problems with the application, and there are no opposing parties.

Furthermore, her application is in class 035 for Goods & Services of: "Managing and operating resort hotels and business conference centers of others". Even if registered, that will mark will not protect her for offering services in Second Life. The virtual is not the real. She needed to apply in class 042, which is probably the proper class for what she's doing in SL.

But--it gets worse. She applied with a filing basis of 1A (currently using the mark in commerce). That requires a specimen demonstrating such use to be attached to the application. However, the specimen she's attached is simply the letters "OWK". That's not going to be acceptable to the Trademark office.

So even if there is no opposition filed, she's going to end up halfway through the application process with a mark that she can't provide a specimen for (as she's not actually "Managing and operating resort hotels and business conference centers of others", and will have to start over in the correct international class. And pay another 275 to 325 US filing fee.



DMCA has nothing to do with Trademarks. Its the "Digital Millenium COPYRIGHT Act". Copyright is not Trademark.



She has no trademark for anything. If I were the owner if OWK Village, I would file a trademark tomorrow, in the correct class.

Does the Czech word for "Trademark" begin with one of the letters D, M, C, or A?

Thank you for this information. I shared it with the Czech OWK Village owner. I also told him not to give Shayna any of his real life information (since she was insisting that he give her his attorney's name). She needs to direct her legal pleadings to Linden Lab. If Linden Lab finds them valid then they will contact the island owner and make arrangements for a name change.

But if Linden Lab allows this to happen - then there will be much project poaching going on in Second Life. Then anyone can see a project they like, attempt a trademark of the project name and insist that Linden Lab shut it down.

I do not think her current effort will get her anywhere but I do not think she will stop trying to own the only OWK in Second Life. She will be providing you all with endless forum fodder.

4)
Lol, and that was his major improvement to shut down the sim. As you have to deal any day with disaffected and unsatisfied women who think they can control your doing, i understand that he gets worth off the business.

And as his intentions where to give others (and himself) fun when he is online but instead of it he reads only desperate messages. (I would eject and ban them from my group and my land and would take more care after in the selection of my staff/members!) You cant even give some frustrated shegoats liabilities when you dont let know them what your goal is when you started this place. I hope the most of you of the former owk dommes i didnt meet again in the future in sl (as long as im again there..)
So i guess in this sense, his backthoughts was to get a bit back what he spends during a year to the community. If someone else means she can simply overtaken a proven name in sl and take her own construct of lawing to run it after under her own name, you are fool! You thinked you are right when you catch all whats remained and when you are inworld is bla bla bla the whole thing you maded, then you thinked wrong.

The second in this story has been scammed and my advice to him is grate your black eye and learn for the future from this episode!

And the 3rd in this story; dont mess up others with your misdoings. When you feel you have been scammed, think well and decide after how to get your lost things back! The one and only thing you maded is well is that you destroyed the gameexperinece of some users here. Its still shooting over the target! For a better understanding read this;

And for the rest of us like i told it many times in the past, us-standards ARENT standards for the world - they doesnt interest us! If "lawyers" behind the big pond and such who mean they are it still proceed today in wild west manners, dont try to dazzle us! We are not idiots. US like to do dont to hit their targets mostly, their real behavior is targeting once extremely to the one side or extremely to the opposite side! But the locigal and (mostly the fairest way) who is situated between both of the extremes isnt in your nature. Listen and learn, "uncle sam" You are targeting too far beneath the mark!

3) I think both of the new sim who call themself with the letters "OWK" are out of business, because the real submissives are careful and avoid both in the future. Instead of having fun we are wasting our moneys and have to fight against others stupidity.
Im asking me what im still doing here... Thats my completion with the "cause owk".

From my understanding of trademarks if you file a trademark for the sole purpose of undermining an long standing company or group you've committed a crime. So... If that is the case the trademark would be invalid and the filer be charged with a crime if the original owners had records of ownership and could also show the person who filed the trademark did so to undermine them.

Could be worth looking into.

In addition to what has already been said, I suggest taking a look at Linden Lab's DMCA page (at http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php ).

It says clearly that the person filing the DMCA has to state, under penalties of perjury, that the person filing is the copyright owner or authorized to act on behalf of the owner. The statement must be exactly as written on that page; you can't replace 'copyright' with 'trademark', send it to LL, and expect them to treat it as a DMCA claim.

So, if this person follows through on the threat to file a DMCA claim, she'll either have to sign that statement or else file a claim that's procedurally invalid. If it's invalid, then hopefully LL will have their act together and reject it. If she signs it as is, then she's put herself into a very unpleasant situation. I don't think it's perjury if you sincerely believe something to be true, but nevertheless, she may be forced to defend against that charge. If someone were to tell her (in some provable way) about this point before the filing, and that trademarks and copyrights are different, then it could be interesting to see her credibly claim that she still believed filing the trademark meant she owned the copyright and have a judge or jury believe it.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't for a minute assume that we have a complete and objective picture of everything that has happened. I'm just pointing out that anyone who files a DMCA claim without understanding what they're doing could potentially be in very serious trouble.

I'm not sure if that's simply a mistranslation of "take your black eye" or else an idiom from another language that doesn't translate literally. It's interesting in either case.


While there are times when US-centric behavior deserves this criticism, this isn't one of them.

This isn't a case of someone trying to apply US law and convention in places where it doesn't apply. This is a case of someone not understanding the law to begin with. I think you'll find that US and European law are more similar than different in this situation.

it sounds kind of silly to me that someone would create something after i had..then go and get a trademark or copyright and then try to get me to stop making or doing what i have been doing before they ever came along..

i mean isn't it to secure something you feel you came up with first? if they dig and find i was here or making something with a certain name say a year longer than this person was around .wouldn't that put their effort to secure a name or products or whatever is the trademark or copyright at risk?

in other words wouldn't it come down to me just showing i was the original and such and such date proves i was?

can you lose a copyright or trademark i guess is what i am asking ?

Probably not worth looking into from a monetary standpoint since the Czech owners of OWK would have to retain lawyers in the U.S. to pursue it. I'm just presuming like most businesses of small to moderate size, they don't have time and money to burn on international litigation, which is probably why this idiot in the U.S. assumes she can get away with whatever it is she's attempting to do. I'm still not quite sure what that is. Gain control of virtual land in Second Life by spending lots of money on legal filings bearing false statements that could potentially lead to criminal charges. Not typically the way most people would go about getting themselves and island.

If there is a legitimate legal claim worthy of litigation, then the complaining party is wise to go through all available means of resolving the problem before filing a lawsuit. Even if the available means are probably ultimately fruitless, it looks good in the eyes of a judge or jury that one tried before going to court. Taking one's best shot to resolve the issue through Linden Lab's procedure- even if it is a longshot- is still probably a good move.

That's good as far as it goes, but it grinds to a halt when you get to the part about signing under penalties of perjury. Remember that perjury is a crime.

Even without the perjury issue, there's a line between following process and harassment. Filing a trademark infringement complaint with LL is one thing. Using the DMCA process when it's clearly the wrong process, primarily because it's a more aggressive process, is another.

Well, that's why I started out by qualifying "If there's a legitimate legal claim." I don't know all the facts. Of course, if there is no legitimate claim from the start, you are correct.

For the most part, yes. Proving you were first carries a lot of weight.

Copyrights and trademarks are two different things. You can't really lose a copyright. You can sell it or give it away. Or someone could prove that you never were entitled to it in the first place. To do that, they'd either have to prove that you weren't first, or that it item in question wasn't eligible for copyright to begin with.

You can lose a trademark, aspirin being a well-known example. But it's also possible for two different entities to own the same trademark, as long as they're in different markets. Things get interesting when one owner tries to expand into a market for which the other owner has claim, or both try to expand into a market for which neither had claim. I won't pretend to know much about that situation, other than it exists.

Kidd gave you essentially the answer on that. It is very important for companies to aggressively protect trademarks, because letting infringements pass without trying to do something about it is the easiest way to lose a trademark.

Though I don't know about the case with apirin, I assume it's the same kind of case as band-aids. Band-Aid started as a product name for adhesive bandages. Eventually, band-aid became a generic term everyone was using to describe adhesive bandages of any type. Because the company didn't act early enough in combating the generic use of the word band-aid (sending letters to publications using "band-aid" generically, for example), when it finally did get around to trying to protect the trademark, the courts wouldn't protect it fully.

The company that owns Kleenex routinely monitors the media for mentions of grabbing "a kleenex" rather than "a Kleenex brand facial tissue." Every time someone anywhere mentions "a kleenex," the legal team sends a cease-and-desist letter. They even take out ads in media industry publications explaining how to properly refer to "a Kleenex brand facial tissue."

To illustrate, that is why Linden Lab came out with it's Second Life Brand Center, it's Guidelines for Using Linden Lab's Trademarks, and it's threats to go after bloggers who didn't comply with the rules. While it may seem silly and/or draconian, it's a necessary and vital part of Linden Lab's strategy to protect it's trademark on Second Life, and not lose it.

(And in doing my double-check to make sure I didn't misstate anything in this post, I discovered that the 1921 case regarding aspirin is concerned THE example of losing a trademark due to generic usage.)

Updated update: Once it was pointed out in this forum that she lied about owning any trademarks she sent a notecard to the OWK Village Island Owner's avatar stating that she applied for a trademark.

When it was attempted to speak to her about all of these notecards she refused to discuss it and said speak to her lawyer. Then tonight a fake SL attorney contacted people affiliated with OWK Village and tried to get them to say that they were using Shayna's trademark.

I think they hope to dazzle Linden Lab with all of this legalese (as they try to do with us). It seems they are hoping that no one notices the underlying reality of the situation - If the question is about 'implied trademark' (since she does not have a trademark), then use comes up. She says she used OWK for 8 months - but michaal owned the SL Island named OWK for eight months (even though her mainland OWK is deeded to a group entitled OWK she just created). Is she saying that since she was a member of michaal's group that she was using OWK? If that is the case then 1,800 people in the group can make the same lame claim.

So now this 'lawyer' is going to contact Linden Lab with a DMCA and try to force them to change the name of an Island that has had the same name for a year - well before She decided she owned the name. If Linden Lab caves on this one then there truly is no hope for this platform.

Any IP lawyer will tell you that the DMCA applies to copyrighted works, not trademarks. A single word or short company name like "OWK" or "General Electric" can't be copyrighted. It's a trademark or a service mark.

He tried some scare tactics



It seems now she is engaging in spiteful litigation. She listed her mainland sim yesterday deeded to her OWK Group. She used the OWK Initials and Other World Kingdom in her Sim Group Name (We just use the original island name - OWK Village).

They want to know what OWK stands for in our Island and group name

Only
We
Know

Useful info:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/trademark/faq.cgi

Note that if this is a trademark dispute they need to send you a Cease and Desist letter. They can not use the DMCA:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=3127

If they DO, then you can use this form:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf

Absolutely right. I reread the relevant section of the actual law this afternoon. One note though--some ISPs do (incorrectly) use the DMCA takedown and notification procedure for trademark violations, as well. That's not a matter of law, but of ISP convienance, which is likely to come back to bit them on the ass eventually.

Nope.

Lets say business A, named "pig" was in business since 2001.

In 2009 a new "business" B emerges and decides to TM "pig" under the same service categories business A works in.

Business B can not try to say business A is infringing, as business A has been in business since 01. Really, it is business B who is infringing even if they were able to register the TM.

From my understanding I think business A needs to just be able to prove they were operating since 01. Business B would not be able to prove they were since they began operating in 09.

A TM keeps this type of thing from happening. Just like a copyright. Even if you dont officially register a work with the copyright office, you still own copyright to it. But formally registering a copyright is your solid proof that will get you through any disputes.

Im not sure how it all works step by step but I do know when I was trying to get something TMd a few years back I asked, "So, if someone is using this same name I can issue a cease and desist order?" her reply was, "If they were not using the name before you"... Also, a question they ask is "Date first used in commerce" and you need to supply a "specimin" which proves you were using it on the date you claim.

I think business, or individuals, are responsable for checking the database to make sure a name is not already TM, and they need to try to find out if there is already someone operating under that name, TM or not, before they go ahead and get something registered. This is to protect themselves as if someone was indeed already using the name, even if they didnt get it TM`d yet, a dispute could errupt.


Im definitely not a lawyer and maybe misunderstood. So, dont take my word for it. But from my understanding of it all, there is absolutely no way someone could legally TM a name someone else has been using and try to claim it as theres to get somenoe shut down. If original name-owner can prove they were using the name in commerce before the thieves, the thieves really have no leg to stand on. To PREVENT this type of drama from happening, business should take steps to TM their name.

And keep in mind a TM/SM and copyright are two different things

Use an Indian theme and claim it is a village in the Owk mandal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owk

Matthew

That is my rational understanding of the law also. We shall see in a few days if Linden Lab allows her to get away with this.

Why she is knowingly attempting to trademark a real life and SL place is beyond my understanding. That's like walking into a store, throwing a Persian Rug over your shoulder and walking out without paying. It is blatant daylight robbery. Big ballz.

It's an attempt at taking something of someone else's from under their feet, and taking advantage of the large membership. Unfortunately, she succeeded in part by getting the large group.