Posted on 12/12/2018 9:01:41 AM PST by OddLane
When federal prosecutors finally managed to put mobster Al Capone behind bars, it wasn't for murder or bootlegging, but tax evasion.
Fast forward several decades and government lawyers in Southern California say a similarly novel tactic could be the key to taking down the Mongols, a notorious motorcycle club that has long been targeted by authorities for killings and drug trafficking.
Instead of tax returns, the court battle this time will be won or lost in the decidedly unexciting trenches of trademark and forfeiture law.
If the government prevails in a racketeering case in Orange County against the group's leadership, prosecutors plan to seek a court order to seize control of the club's coveted, trademarked insignia, which its members wear emblazoned on the back of their biker jackets...
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
American Gestapo. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t committed a crime, we will find some excuse, no matter how flimsy, to take you down.
ROTFLMAO
That said, IP laws, i.e. copyright, trademark, patent, have outlived whatever usefulness they once had.
—convinces that terminal stupidity has taken over at least one federal prosecutors office—
—I wonder if someone has ever thought of eliminating the KKK by taking away their letters?
No, as a matter of fact they have not.
lol.
Well, there goes my Krispy Kreme donuts.
Explain how the theory you espouse handles cases where breach of trademark leads to physical death.
Because positions which ignore that reality are too slipshod to take seriously.
Let the feds have ‘Mongols”. The gang can quickly change it to “Mongoloids” and citizens in the area will agree it is, perhaps, a more fitting name.
I guess Faber College is now on "Double Secret Probation".
What’s the Fed’s endgame here? So they get legal control over the trademark “Mongols.” Are they then going to start arresting every biker they see with a Mongols jacket? Are they going to license “Mongols” to The Gap and flood the market with knockoff Mongols tee shirts?
Seems stupid to me unless the Mongols club is making a fortune already licensing the Mongols name, which I doubt they are currently doing. And I’d hate to be caught wearing a Mongols hoodie I bought from Urban Outfitters when a real Mongol rode by and saw me. Something tells me I wouldn’t be wearing that hoodie much longer...
Just wait until the social justice warriors get a hold of them.
I would disagree with you on that to a certain degree. Trademarks are something that I think it actually makes sense to enforce, because it adds information to a consumer's buying decisions. Companies spend billions to develop and protect their marks, because they are an easy way for consumers to identify the authenticity of goods.
Trademarks can also be lost if the owner of a mark doesn't actively work to protect it, thus abandoned marks can return to the public domain if they are not used and actively protected.
As for copyright, I'm right there with you. The terms of copyright have been expanded to the point of being nothing less than sheer lunacy. Next year will be the first year in this country when any works enter the public domain in 20 years. I strongly support a broad restriction of copyright, such that it returns to its original 14 year term, renewable once for a total of 28 years. This would add some sanity to copyright that we are currently sorely missing.
The government has also screwed up patents pretty badly. "First to file" needs to be tossed out with prejudice as well as some of the silly design and 'process' patents that have screwed up the tech industry over the last few decades.
Hey, what ever happened to the Gallopin Gooses and the Satan Slaves? Anybody know?
Thinking the same here. If there’s no money changing hands on the sale of the trademark how is it’s misuse enforced?
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