[E-trademarks] Proud Boys trademark

[Carl Oppedahl]

It's not an opinion, exactly.  It is simply an order of the court, 
granted due to a default by the defendant.  It came from a state court 
judge.  My guess is that the lawyer on the plaintiff side drafted up a 
proposed order and gave it to the judge, who maybe touched it up before 
signing it.  My guess is that neither the lawyer nor the judge knows 
anything about trademark law.  What makes me guess this is that the 
order absolutely nowhere contains any language that looks to me like it 
conveys the associated goodwill.

For a number of reasons I have to imagine the church would never be in a 
position to sign the papers needed to carry out a renewal of the 
registration.

One of the worries of course is what if the Proud Boys simply trot back 
down to the Trademark Office and file a new trademark application?

Seems to me the church could maintain some measure of control over the 
situation.  What I would do in their shoes is file half a dozen 
trademark applications for the same drawing, identifying services that 
are in the periphery.  An exemplary ID would be "providing a web site 
with information about XYZ" where XYZ is some sort of content that the 
church could be comfortable with. Quotations from scripture that remind 
the reader of things that are good to know, golden rule, good Samaritan, 
being kind to strangers, etc.  The kind of trademark application for 
which a simple web page could be the specimen of use, and it would be 
easy to do renewals.

And then with these half a dozen registrations in place, hopefully if 
the Proud Boys (or a new legal entity they create) were to try to 
re-register, hopefully the Examining Attorney would refuse registration 
in view of the half a dozen registrations.


On 2/7/2025 10:29 AM, Miriam Richter, Esq. via E-trademarks wrote:
>
> All,
>
> I’ve had a crazy week so it is possible that I’m missing something 
> really basic here because my brain is fried, but, how is an historic 
> Black church in DC going to own the trademark? How will they show use? 
> I found four pending applications and no registrations. All four are 
> owned by different individuals/companies and all but one are 1b.
>
> How can the trademark PROUD BOYS indicate a Black church as the source 
> of the goods/services being provided? Is this a common law trademark 
> thing?
>
> Does anyone have access to the opinion?
>
> Best,
>
> Miriam
>
> Miriam Richter, Attorney at Law, P.L.
>
> /Make Your Mark!// ®/
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