Idiot Lauren Boebart -- Allows Trademarks to Expire. South Park Contributor Creates Parody Website

[TheBlackAdder]

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Republican Lauren Boebert threatens legal action against a parody website – and it quickly blows up in her face

A group looking to defeat GOP Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert is auctioning off the logo to her gun-themed restaurant after discovering she let the business's state and federal trademarks lapse, Colorado Politics reports. The group decided to auction off the trademarks after the conservative congresswoman threatened to take legal action against the parody site TheLaurenBoebert.com.

"There are a lot of people out there more clever than us, and we sure don't want to let this opportunity go to waste," Rural Colorado United tweeted Tuesday along with a link to the online auction to the Shooters Grill logo.
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"How can we possibly expect her to do the basic functions of her job, like read a bill, hold a town hall, or fight for our fair share in DC gridlock?" Buentello said.

"After securing the trademark in February, the group tweeted, its organizers had 'mostly forgotten about it' until Toby Morton, a Colorado native and onetime contributor to the "South Park" TV show, posted an image of an email online Tuesday and asked legal experts to weigh in," Colorado Politics reports. "The email, which said it was from Boebert's press secretary, Jake Settle, claimed a parody website launched by Morton in January 'needs to be taken down' because it used photos that 'are copyrighted property of the U.S. Federal Government' and Boebert's congressional office."

https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-trademark-auction/

Read the About, Blog, etc. All fun.

https://www.thelaurenboebert.com/



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[CentralMass]

1. :-)

[DBoon]

2. This begs for ridicule, but there is a serious element here

Right Wing politicians will go to great lengths to snuff out any criticism or mocking of them, including removing centuries old protections for satire and re-writing intellectual property law for their benefit.

[Wounded Bear]

27. Because humor is the best weapon against them...

to quote a line from an old episode of NCIS, "Nobody laughs at the boss." The quote was in reference to a gang culture, but you get the drift. We all know about court jesters of yesteryear, but we seldom hear how often they need replaced. Authoritarians can't countenance ridicule. One of the reason satire was invented was to ridicule those in authority while not referencing them directly by name or title.

[JoanofArgh]

3. Check out findmagalove.com

"NOT JUST ANOTHER
DATING AGENCY
RACISTS? FRAUDS?

ADULTERERS? LIARS? NARCISSISTS?

WELCOME TO PARADISE!"

[Blanks]

4. I've always been kind of amused by the name 'Shooters Grill'

[DinahMoeHum]

5. Further explanations from Rural Colorado United.

HAVE FUN !!

Link to tweet

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1389547512973910016.html

[Kid Berwyn]

13. Like Hooter's with an "S"

Catchy.

[Harker]

20. I'll take honkers over bonkers. n/t

[gldstwmn]

16. They should definitely do the toilet paper.

[dixiegrrrrl]

28. I love the way she throws around important sounding words

as if they have real meaning.

So she is "the US gov." now?

[lpbk2713]

6. Stupid is as stupid does sir.

BWAHAHAHA

[Mersky]

7. LMAO

Last edited Wed May 5, 2021, 04:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Really, really want to bid on that… prolly won’t, but dang.

Eta: Upon further review, I’m not sure what to do with NFTs. However, the situation is funny AF.

[Ms. Toad]

8. That's a whole mess of legal nonsense.

Trademarks are created by use. Registration gives you some additional legal rights (specifically the right to exclude others on a national basis from using them as source identifiers for the class of products for which they are registered) - but they can't just be snagged and sold to the highest bidder.

The person purporting to sell the marks must own (and be using them) as source identifier.

And - even if they are selling something off, Boebert would still have the legal right to use the marks as she has always had.

Further - trademarks are registered for a class of products. Even if the registration wasn't expired, if Boebert registered it for garments (I am not bothering to look up the formal class - by that's an example of the breadth of a class), but not for restaurants, someone could grab it now and use it anywhere outside of her geographical region as a source identifer for restaurants because Federal Registration expands a local right (established by use in a region) to the entire country.

To the extent they mean copyrights, copyrights are even harder to snag and sell to the highest bidder. The author (or someone to whom the author has affirmatively transferred rights) is the only one with the right to sell the copyright.

(Addtional notes: Trademarks often include both a mark (source identifier) and artwork (copyright). On a very quick search, I don't find any marks registred to Shooter's Grill, or any mark containing the word Shooter registered in February - as alleged by the article. Only one mark registered to an entity with Rural Colorado - and it isn't this one.)

[stopdiggin]

11. Thanks. solid info - -(nt)-

[orleans]

21. can you check for a service mark?

trademarks are for an item or product (like coke or pepsi), servicemarks are for businesses that provide a service. i'm not sure what restaurants would fall under.

[Ms. Toad]

26. That's am informal distinction.

Service marks are just source identifiers for services (rather than goods). They are both -formally - trademarks.

I saw another post that suggested it was a state registration.

State registration of trademarks in Colorado follow the same principles as Federal registrations. Specifically -

7-70-103. Effect of filing statement of trademark registration

(1) A statement of trademark registration filed by the secretary of state shall be notice of the claims made in the statement of trademark registration from and after the date and time the statement of trademark registration is filed.

(2) Except as provided in subsection (1) of this section, filing of a statement of trademark registration does not confer upon the registrant any substantive right or create any remedy not otherwise available. All substantive rights and remedies created by the laws of this state with respect to trademarks are created exclusively by common law.

(3) Except as provided in subsection (1) of this section, filing of a statement of trademark registration does not enlarge or otherwise affect rights with respect to the trademark that are created by the common law of this state or any other laws. The lack of filing of a statement of trademark registration does not impair or otherwise affect such rights.

(4) This article does not confer the right to use the phrase "registered in the United States patent and trademark office", the abbreviation "reg. U.S. pat. & tm. off.", or any other abbreviation of such phrase or variant thereof, or the letter R enclosed within a circle, or reg; in connection with a trademark with respect to which a statement of trademark registration has been filed by the secretary of state.

In other words - trademarks are created by use, not registration (common law). Registration provides notice to the state (in state marks), or to the country (in federal marks).

Marks are source identifiers for specific classes of goods. Someone else registering the mark must be using it to identify themselves as the source of the goods (or services) in a particuar class (llikely class 043: Hotels & restaurants. So the advertiser almost certainly has no legal rights in the mark (they appear to be a squatter), and whoever they sell it to can't use it for whatever they want (at least in the trademark sense), since the mark is only registered for the specific class of goods identified in the registration.

[NQAS]

9. If anyone's interested

this website name is available with .us, .info, .org, .net, and some others. All pretty cheap.

Go to whois.com and search.

Not a lawyer, but I suppose you can avoid copyright issues by not using any images that have copyright attached or even ones you suspect of being copyrighted.

But information, quotes, links? General mockery? I can't imagine these would be a problem.

[ZonkerHarris]

10. This is a true free speech issue. a govt official is trying to silence private citizens

with the power of her office.

[SunSeeker]

12. Exactly. nt

[crickets]

25. +1

[TomDaisy]

14. didn't taxpayers pay for those photos? don't they belong to us in the public domain?

[Duppers]

24. Good point!

[IronLionZion]

15. Find MAGA Love!

https://www.findmagalove.com/

[Lucinda]

17. ...

[TheBlackAdder]

18. 3rd Shift Kick

[James48]

19. Note

The federal government does not copywrite works produced by the federal government. Those belong to the people of the USA.

[Hortensis]

22. :) "All this has served to do is to Streisand a parody site..."

... Mike Masnick, editor of the Techdirt blog, posted a lengthy analysis Monday night after reviewing the original email and concluding it appeared to have come from Settle.

While the email was a "mess of confusing concepts" that might have a legal claim "buried in here" about some of the material on Morton's site, Masnick wrote, the "threat is stupid."

"All this has served to do is to Streisand a parody site that likely wasn't receiving much if any traffic prior to this," Masnick wrote, referring to the "Streisand effect," which happens when attempts to suppress information winds up drawing far more attention to it.

Masnick added that Morton told him his Boebert site hadn't gotten much traffic before Monday's controversy "but now tons of people are looking at it." ...

The group tweeted Tuesday that it had also picked up rights to the trademarked logo for Shooters Gear, used by the restaurant to advertise T-shirts and other merchandise, and plans to throw that in with the Shooters Grill logo.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/boebert-opponents-auctioning-off-shooters-grill-logo-in-response-to-demand-to-shut-down-parody/article_a5a63e94-acf6-11eb-b59b-1baa7a03298b.html

[BobTheSubgenius]

23. "inherently stupid"

I think I'll just leave that here. Less is more.