Notice served and Dulwich Hamlet locked out of ground

[Saul Goodman]

How on earth did they get those trademarks? Surely they have no entitlement to them?
Have a look into trademark law and, in particular, 'passing off'.

 

[telbert]

I don't really follow football anymore and ive never seen DHFC play. I don't even live in the area and I only discovered this shameful act of bullying via twitter but I honestly hope you can secure the future of DHFC and its ground. And hopefully show this disgraceful shower of cunts up for what they fucking are.

 

[editor]

 

[editor]

 

[maomao]

More solidarity from a comrade with no interest in football here. I hope your confidential plans on how to deal with this bunch of cunts involve plenty of bricks and baseball bats.

 

[editor]

Sports lawyer comments:

 

[editor]

BBC report
Dulwich Hamlet forced out of Champion Hill home as row with stadium owners escalates

 

[Voley]

 

[Voley]

Best of luck stopping this DHFC. I'd be mortified if Penzance were being turfed out of Penlee Park si I hope other non-league fans will get behind you. Give us a shout if I can publicise / retweet or help any other way.

 

[editor]

Guardian report: Threat of eviction grows for Dulwich Hamlet as row with stadium owners escalates

 

[editor]

Date for your diaries:

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I've no personal connection to [football club name redacted in case of law suit] but can I just say what a bunch of CUNTS

 

[T-BIzzle]

editor can add you.

Could I be added to the "confidential" forum too if possible please

 

[T-BIzzle]

Meadow Residential LLP
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 73682280
Address: First Floor, 50 Great Marlborough Street, London, W1F 7JS

 

[B.I.G]

Could I be added to the "confidential" forum too if possible please

???

 

[crocustim]

Wow. I have been without the internet for a couple of days. A lot has happened! CPO proceedings, MPs and Lords, locked out, trademark bastardry, and beating billericay. Hang in there Dulwich!

 

[not-bono-ever]

Sports lawyer comments:

was going to bring this up- snarfing a brand late on - its not the end of the world and well contestable with the right advice but not cheap to enagage. An expensive irritance rather than anything else. Classic disruption tactic.

 

[editor]

Could I be added to the "confidential" forum too if possible please

You're going to have to introduce yourself to some of the Hamlet regulars at the next game first because - as I'm sure you understand - we have to ensure that only actual fans get to read that forum.

 

[Tricky Skills]

Remember when Peter Bennison, then from Hadley, now the MD of Meadow Residential, had his meet and greet session four years ago in the bar?

I'm so pleased that I recorded the short session.

It seems that he was a little economical with the truth.

Fancy that.



"Dulwich Hamlet football club will be playing football here in 100 years to come if it can sustain itself.

We want to work closely with the club and the community to work out a sustainable way that this football club can run. We are not here for a quick buck. This is a long term project with the community and with Southwark Council to work out what the needs are for this site.

We will work with people going forward for what is best for the club. The club is the lifeblood of the local community. We have got to work with you guys. We've all got to work together.

The club has got to stay here. I can assure you that the club will stay here.

Buying the club is not dependent on getting planning permission.

I would see the community owning this football club at some point.

Communication will flow - there will be no not knowing what is going on. You will know exactly what is going on."

 

[Steve B]

I have registered a trademark before and it is not that straightforward. You have to advertise it first and go through quite a strict process.
I think there is also a period where there can be an appeal. I'm not 100% on this, but I seem to recall it is quite a process. I think if there are any old trademakrs that predate it, they will be valid so it would be worth checking club archives.

Also, I thought a trademark was a logo, not a piece of text. Have they trademarked the badge? They can't trademark a word in the english language as far as I know.

Would it be worth trying to raise some money from the fans (maybe a new specific pot) to pay a trademark specialist to advise us? Maybe there is someone amongst the fans that can access some trademark advice cheaply? I imagine we would need a few hundred quid for some preliminary advice and that may be enough.

In terms of breaching a trademark, I am not sure what the penalty is. I think it may be just loss of income and I imagine that if we as a club ignore the trademark ruling, they can only come at us for loss of income which they would need to prove. I'm not sure we would lose them any income, so they probably couldn't claim any losses.

If they went for an injunction to stop us using it, then maybe we could play as Streatham Rovers for a few games whilst it is sorted out.

I could be (probably am) wrong on some of this, but it may be worth looking into.

 

[Saul Goodman]

I have registered a trademark before and it is not that straightforward. You have to advertise it first and go through quite a strict process.
I think there is also a period where there can be an appeal. I'm not 100% on this, but I seem to recall it is quite a process. I think if there are any old trademakrs that predate it, they will be valid so it would be worth checking club archives.

Also, I thought a trademark was a logo, not a piece of text. Have they trademarked the badge? They can't trademark a word in the english language as far as I know.

Would it be worth trying to raise some money from the fans (maybe a new specific pot) to pay a trademark specialist to advise us? Maybe there is someone amongst the fans that can access some trademark advice cheaply? I imagine we would need a few hundred quid for some preliminary advice and that may be enough.

In terms of breaching a trademark, I am not sure what the penalty is. I think it may be just loss of income and I imagine that if we as a club ignore the trademark ruling, they can only come at us for loss of income which they would need to prove. I'm not sure we would lose them any income, so they probably couldn't claim any losses.

If they went for an injunction to stop us using it, then maybe we could play as Streatham Rovers for a few games whilst it is sorted out.

I could be (probably am) wrong on some of this, but it may be worth looking into.

DHFC (and the rest of the recently registered trademarks) would be considered a prior trademark, regardless of whether or not it was previously registered.
I've been involved in a trademark dispute in the past, and I have no idea how this shyster has managed to register those trademarks. They don't belong to him and he has no affiliation whatsoever to them.
The recently registered trademarks should be challenged ASAP.
The 'penalty' for wrongfully registering and enforcing the trademark would depend on how badly wronged the wronged party was. If it forces the closure of a football club that's been on the go the best part of a century, the penalty could run into millions.

I strongly suggest someone involved in the club should get a trademark lawyer on the case ASAP, and, with all the publicity this is generating (and the fact it's a case that I can't see how it could be lost), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they had lawyers chomping at the bit to do this pro bono.

 

[Mumbles274]

Adding my voice of support as a non supporter. Is there anything people like me can do that helps from a position of not being involved or directly affected?

I'm not even a football fan, too much falling over ...but i 100% support those that do follow footy and even more so at the lesser levels. Good luck DHFC, lets hope you pull through

 

[Saul Goodman]

Adding my voice of support as a non supporter. Is there anything people like me can do that helps from a position of not being involved or directly affected?

I'm not even a football fan, too much falling over ...but i 100% support those that do follow footy and even more so at the lesser levels. Good luck DHFC, lets hope you pull through

I hate football but nowhere near as much as I hate greedy speculators!
As I mentioned above, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a queue of lawyers falling over themselves to take this on pro bono. I don't see how they could possibly lose, but, if that doesn't transpire, I reckon a 'go-fund-me' or similar thing should be set up, as I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to contribute to fight such an injustice. I'd even throw a few quid in myself, and, as I mentioned previously, I'm not a great fan of football.

 

[Winot]

I have registered a trademark before and it is not that straightforward. You have to advertise it first and go through quite a strict process.
I think there is also a period where there can be an appeal. I'm not 100% on this, but I seem to recall it is quite a process. I think if there are any old trademakrs that predate it, they will be valid so it would be worth checking club archives.

Also, I thought a trademark was a logo, not a piece of text. Have they trademarked the badge? They can't trademark a word in the english language as far as I know.

Would it be worth trying to raise some money from the fans (maybe a new specific pot) to pay a trademark specialist to advise us? Maybe there is someone amongst the fans that can access some trademark advice cheaply? I imagine we would need a few hundred quid for some preliminary advice and that may be enough.

In terms of breaching a trademark, I am not sure what the penalty is. I think it may be just loss of income and I imagine that if we as a club ignore the trademark ruling, they can only come at us for loss of income which they would need to prove. I'm not sure we would lose them any income, so they probably couldn't claim any losses.

If they went for an injunction to stop us using it, then maybe we could play as Streatham Rovers for a few games whilst it is sorted out.

I could be (probably am) wrong on some of this, but it may be worth looking into.

The position is as follows:

1. The Trade Marks Registry do not reject applications on the basis of earlier rights. They leave it up to competing owners to handle that themselves through the opposition or invalidation procedure. That is why these have not been rejected.

2. Ordinary words can be registered. An objection will however be raised if the words are descriptive of the products/services covered. Not the case here.

3. DHFC can invalidate the registrations if they can show that as a result of their use of the marks over the years, they have amassed unregistered rights (passing off rights). Essentially they need to show that people seeing the mark used on the products/services will assume they are being used by the club and not by the registered owner of the mark. See Section 47(2) of 1994 Trade Marks Act.

4. The club could therefore start collecting evidence of use of the marks over the years if it wanted to mount an invalidation action.

5. However this is probably a distraction as in practice the club will have a defence to infringement under Section 11(3) to essentially carry on doing what it has been doing over the years.

6. I don't know anything about this dispute but it sounds like an arsehole Goliath v plucky David situation, right? So even if Goliath loses the trade mark action, it will still cost David money to defend. This is a potentially expensive distraction. The club seems to be doing very well harnessing media to get people on its side. The trade mark issue is probably not worth prioritising.

Caveat - the above is general advice as I haven't looked at the papers. I am a lawyer though.

 

[Winot]

The 'penalty' for wrongfully registering and enforcing the trademark would depend on how badly wronged the wronged party was. If it forces the closure of a football club that's been on the go the best part of a century, the penalty could run into millions.

Not true. The club should not get seduced into thinking that they can make money out of litigation. You can only ever get back to the position you are in, and in practice there will be a cost for even that.

If the club do want formal pro bono advice then they could approach this organisation for help:
My Site

 

[Nivag]

The Law Gazette has picked up on the story now
Firm in trade mark row with embattled football club

I

 

[3010]

Looks like this trademark row might prove to be very beneficial for us as it's really picking up traction in the media:

 

[Fingers]

 

[mickydoodle]

Does anyone have any info on "Greendales IP LLC", on whose behalf Blake Morgan are acting? I can't find anything on the Companies House site and Google only lists news articles where they are mentioned in the text.

 

[Fingers]

Have a chat with them on their facebook page

Blake Morgan LLP