[Robotgroup] If you want something done.... delegate? :)

[Def Egge]

Good Lord, I don't have time to be dealing with this....

We need to have an address - not someone's home, not someone's  
business - a legal address for The Robot Group that the Texas  
Secretary of State's office, that someone's attorneys, the Travis  
County Tax Appraisal District, domain name registrars, and - possibly  
- the Texas State Comptroller's Office (should be elect to begin sales  
and collecting sales taxes) can reach us.  The address must outlive  
individuals and their businesses ... and changes in membership ...  
like any 'real' corporation.

Prior art, schmior art ... we made a critical strategic mistake in  
never defending ANY of The Robot Group's intellectual property.  The  
registration of a trademark or service mark is no mean feat ... that's  
why it it handled by the US Patent and Trademark Office.  A thorough  
search must be conducted by a registered agent and - I'll bet my butt  
on this one - an attempt to contact holders of prior art must be  
undertaken.  Where would they have sent a registered mail to us?  If  
such a letter was returned to sender, you can rest assured that the  
filing of the service mark would go through unchallenged.

The legal costs to recover the rights to the name could easily exceed  
$20K even though there is legal precedent.  The costs for a 4" x 6"  
box at a mutually-inconvenient USPS location is less than $200 / year.

The cost to re-register the service mark, in the event that we were  
awarded legal ownership of it, could still exceed $2000 even if we did  
most of the legwork and paperwork.

We need to begin to examine our intellectual property assets and work  
toward aggressive defense of those that we have not already lost.

We will be extremely lucky if the current holder of the service mark  
decides that sharing it is the right thing to do (don't even think of  
them abandoning it after going to the trouble and expense of  
registering it).  What teeth do we have to bare in the likely event  
that they say, "No!"?

Good luck and hope for the best.


All the best....

Mike


Quoting Vern Graner <vern at txis.com>:

> vkonradi at swbell.net wrote:
>> In order to do so I will need a go-ahead from Vern, and
>> perhaps the BOD, to represent the RG.
>
> <python>
> Pia, Jesu Domine...dona eis requiem.. <thwack!> Go for it! ;)
> </python>
>
> But seriously, I'd like to make sure that we don't take an "aggressive"
> approach, but rather just a redress of the issue i.e. "I'm sure there's
> been a misunderstanding as this is the name we have used since 1988 for
> our events so we have prior art" and then point them to the archive.org
> listing for robotgroup.org showing how we invented and used the name
> over the years.
>
> I think we need to:
>
> 1) Establish our creation/prior claim and ask them to stop claiming it
> as a "service mark"
>
> 2) Make an agreement that they are welcome to continue to use the name
> as long as they do NOT try to stop US from using the name.
>
> I'm not sure about the "ownership" of the "robofest.net" being held by
> them, and I noticed that someone is "squatting" on robofest.com as well.
> We might want to get the ownership of those domains moved to us if possible.
>
> As for the board, they can jump right in here with their opinions..?
>
> Vern
>
> PS: Paul shared this definition: "Delegate (v) To remove the legs from." ;)
>
> --
> Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
> Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
> Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
> http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
> Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" ©VLG
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>



-- 


All the best....


Mike