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CI/CBID Threatens To Sue Local Cigar Event

Kingston

Kingston

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cigarman82 said:
As I put in my introduction thread, I am the producer of this event. Trademark law does not apply to descriptive words, which our title is, it's a fest, in the midwest, with cigars. We consulted several trademark attorneys regarding this matter, and they all told me we would win, that Midwest Cigar Fest in no way infringes on ther trademark of CIGARFEST. We however, don't have an extra $10,000 to defend ourselves in federal court.
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You may be right, but they still have to show that they are trying to protect their brand. Whether they are right or wrong, they have to do it or risk losing "CIGARFEST" to anyone who wants to use it.
I bet a good amount of the cease and desist letters that companies send out have no merit, but they have to send them or else their brand may enter the public domain and they lose all rights to it (even if somebody actually infringes upon it).
Like I said, US trademark/copyright law has very little to do with actual right/wrong or fairness.
 
Wasch_24

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Kingston said:
You may be right, but they still have to show that they are trying to protect their brand. Whether they are right or wrong, they have to do it or risk losing "CIGARFEST" to anyone who wants to use it.
I bet a good amount of the cease and desist letters that companies send out have no merit, but they have to send them or else their brand may enter the public domain and they lose all rights to it (even if somebody actually infringes upon it).
Like I said, US trademark/copyright law has very little to do with actual right/wrong or fairness.
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Exactly, as sucky as it is and as obvious it is that they would lose this case they are compelled, by law, to do this.

This stuff happens all the time.

The Fuente lawyers made a cigar forum remove the word "Family" from their name and a sponsor here was forced to remove the prefix "Humidi-" from his product.

In all these cases the cost of fighting, even though winable, prohibtied the acosted from fighting the claims and submissing to the bigger companies.

Defintely David vs Goliath.

Sucks.

My advise would be to take the high road and not attempt to defame CI publicly because they may make that their next issue to defend.

Most likely the leadership has no clue this is even happening...it is likely their lawyers persuing this without the senior leadership of the company having any idea about it.
 
Electric Sheep

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DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING IS A PERSONAL STORY
AND HAS NO RELATION TO THE INITIAL POST,
THE CONTENT OF THE ORIGINAL POST, OR THE
INTENT OF THE ORIGINAL POSTER. I AM MAKING
THIS POST FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY
AND IN NO WAY SHOULD IT BE TAKEN AS ANY
FORM OF COMMENTARY ON THE INITIAL POST.

I've really been holding my tongue on this whole issue, but Wasch's "take the high road" post was a perfect segue to my own story...

You see, I've been sideswiped by trademark infringment, too. It quite a shock when you get a big letter from a corporate lawyer.

In my case, Dalimer Chrysler had their lawyers issue a c&d to our tiny little group (a non-profit enthusiast group) for a POTENTIAL trademark infringment. In court, we might have won, but we didn't persue it because (A) it wasn't worth it for a friggin name, and (B) we had less $5,000 in the non-profit's bank account, not exactly enough to fight off a International mega-corporation.

So you know what we did? We played nice and took the high road. We agreed to change our name. We agreed to file new Articles of Incorporation with the State. We agreed to write and submit new Corporate Bylaws. We agreed to change our bank account information. We agreed to reprint every single business document we had. We agreed to make new membership cards for all 300+ members. We agreed to make new club stickers for all 300+ members. We agreed to make new t-shirts for all 300+ members. We even agreed to print a special edition of our 8-page member newsletter.

Then we told Dalimer Chrysler what it would cost to do all those things, and how it would cost MORE than what we had in our bank account--SO THEY HAPPILY PAID FOR ALL OF IT!

The high road worked for us. It worked REALLY, REALLY well in fact.

You know why?

Because we understood that it was their LEGAL REQUIREMENT to protect their trademark--or lose it completely--and that they weren't intentionally being EVIL or MEAN. It's just the way trademark law works.

Complaining about it is non-productive at best...and at the worst makes you look like a little tattle-tale cry-baby. :crying:
 
indyrob

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Cigar_Jack said:
Sweet!!, but I'm not sharing rooms... I don't trust you Indy folks that much. Y'all are a bit strange... :help:
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Hey man...I don't care what you heard but that was a long time ago and I have no idea where that donkey came from. The part about the bigwheel races in the hallway was true though, but we didn't have our boxers on our heads like it was reported.

:rofl:
 
TexaSmoke

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Duane is completely correct about this one.

But even though you think you might win a case in the courts, just remember that the system is so F'ed up now that you never really know the outcome until the verdict comes back.
 
cigarman82

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The messages we received from Cigars International were from a person in upper management. As we have said before, it's not that they asked us to change the name, it's how they did it. If the email had said hey, we think there is a conflict here, let's talk, that'd be one thing. But it was more along of the lines of "You need to change the name or we're suing you." The conversations were completely unreasonable and unprofessional. We would win if this went to court, there is no doubt in our minds. We have requested to put the entire chain of emails on our website, but as of yet, have not heard back from CI. We have done nothing to smear their name. Posts on numerous message boards have been along the lines of "they have poor customer service, cbid is poorly run" things like that. Until this happened, we told everyone we knew that smoked cigars about CI, and what great prices they had. If CI thought they had a legitimate argument, or cared what cigar smokers thought about them, they'd come to boards and defend themselves, which they have not done yet.
 
Electric Sheep

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When taking the high road, always remember that it's not about how THEY handle a situation--it's about how YOU handle it.

:yes:
 
cigarman82

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I can assure you, we are handling this better than CI would. We know that cigar smokers are a unique group, and they'd love to have an input on our event. The response has been beyond our wildest dreams, with over 90 entries, from 11 states, and almost 500 people looking at our website.
 
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