Re: CastleCops Under Attack From... A Trademark Troll

["Dr. Neal Krawetz" <hf () hackerfactor com>]

On Tue Jun 27 10:26:03 2006, Fergie wrote:
> Just to give this the exposure it deserves, Alex Eckelberry has
> put up a nice little summary of this ridiculousness:
>
>  http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/castlecops-under-attack-from-trademark.
> html
>
> I put a snippet and pointer to Alex's article on my blog, as well,
> so that people can learn about these patenet and trademark "trolls"
> and the danger they pose to the folks over at CastleCops and the
> fine work they are doing.
>
> Support CastleCops! :-)
>
> - ferg

Heh...
And he claims to have also trademarked:
  Torrent: as in "Bit Torrent"
  Trump: as in Trump Plaza and Trump Tower (wonder how Donald feels)
  Airframe: Like the book by Michael Crichton (published in 1997)

In any case, Leo Stoller has an open directory of images:
  http://www.rentamark.com/images/

What I find even more interesting...
The images on the server are all dated 11-Sep-2003.
Yet, according to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:
  http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.rentamark.com/
  http://web.archive.org/web/20031203155311/rentamark.com/Famous_Marks/famous_marks.html
Many of these "trademarks" were not present in 2003.
Some, like Trump, did not appear until at least mid-2005.
Looks to me like someone is playing with timestamps in order to appear
to have an older claim.

And remember: If you don't use a trademark then it expires immediately.
Only copyrights and patents live on for a duration after the last use.
(US law -- but I'm not a lawyer)  Can Leo show that:
  (1) He is actively using the trademark word "Castle"
  (2) His public usage pre-dates CastleCops
  (3) The use of "CastleCops" will cause public confusion?
Sounds to me like he doesn't have a case.
CastleCops should counter-sue for trademark infringement or interference
with their business.  (Then again, this is not legal advice -- I'm not
a lawyer.)

                                        -Neal
--
Neal Krawetz, Ph.D.
Hacker Factor Solutions
http://www.hackerfactor.com/
Author of "Introduction to Network Security" (Charles River Media, 2006)
http://www.charlesriver.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=126130

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.