[SGVLUG] trademark realities

[Hershel Remer]

BS"D

I am enjoying reading the trademark thread, but you guys are all missing it,
so I have to help out. :)

There is no point to playing with the numbers behind the chance of lightning
striking, because the odds of being sued for trademark infringement cannot be
quantified. Even if we have a concrete set of LUGs, and have a known number of
LUGs that have been hit with a cease and desist letter, that is insufficient
knowledge to determine odds of an actual lawsuit. Why? Because legal action
costs money, and there is no money to be gained from sgvlug, so it is a
guaranteed loss to go after this LUG, and well, no one is going to spend money
like that. And, yes, you have a greater chance of being hit by lightning, no
matter how rare that it is. Why? Because you probably have ZERO chance of
actually being sued. So, even if the group ignored the cease and desist
letter, nothing further would happen. That is just called reality.

Now, if sgvlug made money from the use of the trademark, then everything would
change. Why? Because there would be a monetary incentive to go after the
group. But, smart lawyers would negotiate with sgvlug before taking us to
court anyway because the high costs of litigation are so prohibitive, and so
they would be wise to try to partner "with" sgvlug by offering us a deal as
opposed to suing us. How so? Well, by licensing to us the use of their
trademark or by asking for a cut on all of our "action". That kind of
partnering and licensing relationship goes on all the time.

Actually, the right thing to do right now might be for us to write a letter to
the trademark owner and ask for permission to use the trademark with the
understanding that no monies would be generated by us, etc., and we would
gladly pay a licensing fee if we ever did use the trademark to generate
revenues.




-- the unixrabbi

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