Last week I received a letter telling me that I had violated LAPD IP with my FUCK THE LAPD design. Today my lawyer @questauthority.bsky.social responded.
our intellectual property, consisting of a novel, unique and proprietary combination of letters in a specific order, as produced as a result of work undertaken by our word arrangement initiatives
They own the initialism because they registered it as a trademark. For multiple purposes. Fortunately there's a doctrine that says you can use trademarks for purposes of identifying the owner. (Within limits).
this. i immediately thought of the lakers and went back to check what the infrigement claim was.
I can arrange 4 letters of the alphabet any way i damn well please and the LAPD can't do shit.
so yeah, LOL no. 🤣
I mean, if they own the trademark, which they do, tsdr.uspto.gov#caseNumber=7..., they have the right to enforce it. But, A) it seems kind of f'ed up that a government can own that trademark, and B) I'm pretty sure "Fuck the Police" is unlikely to elicit confusion, and C) it's nominative fair use.
brb, filing a trademark for "Fuck the LAPD" in its entirety as a single complete mark.
This mark will likewise consist of standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color.
And then I'll release it with an open license for all to use. 😁
(IANAL)
They do own it for clothing and toys (???), but the clothing sounds like it is narrowed, in that it is within the grouping of safety type clothing. So, I could make an argument that a T-shirt or a sticker doesn't fit in this class.
They do, if it's infringing. But Nominative Fair Use means that using the trademark to identify the entity marked is permitted. Basically the reason that a generic drug can say "compare to the ingredients in "trademarked brandname".
Note that this doesn't mean you can go out of your way to duplicate all aspects of a mark. If the mark had artistic elements, those aren't strictly necessary to identification, so you couldn't use them. But a mark this simple, and it being a common name for org, yeah, well clear.
They do have a right to enforce it for the goods covered by the mark. They claimed clothing and toys. So, let's say someone went with stickers and phone case covers - those would probably not be able to be stopped under this mark.
I mean, I guess they could have a trademark? But, wouldn't that require them to be using that in a commercial context? How would a police department get to claim they're using that trademark in a commercial context?
WHY THE FUCK IS THERE AN IP HOLDING COMPANY FOR A POLICE DEPARTMENT?! WHAT IP?!
Not a lawyer, but that was my first thought. It uses major elements of the Lakers’ branding. But just the letters “LAPD”? I would hope those guys would get laughed out of any court where they filled a suit.
They hold it as a registered trademark, for clothing (among other things). Not unusual. IBM, AT&T, have similar marks. And those are enforceable. Whether a government agency should be allowed to is another question.
But there is a doctrine of nominative fair use. Which means you are allowed to use a mark if doing so is the most practical way to identify the corp/product that owns the mark. I.E. The reason why generic drugs can say "compare to active ingredients in[]". So, it's well clear on that alone.
Honestly, if I'm counsel for the LAPD, I'm staying away from this one - because seriously. But I'm guessing the LAPD just couldn't resist trying to strongarm someone here.
Does a sniper spend only a moment preparing for his shot? The aiming, judgment of environment, and choice of weapon takes time, even if the small round is delivered quickly.
