Disaster Preparedness Company Thinks People Shouldn't Be Allowed To Use The Words 'Emergency Essentials'
from the PLEASE-DELETE-FROM-YOUR-VOCABULARY dept
Some entities cling to the belief that if a trademark isn't vigorously and ridiculously "defended," it will slip out of their grasp. This attitude has led to legal action (and legal threats) over common English words, with the complainant often bypassing any sort of reasonable confusion claims and heading directly towards claiming the entity "owns" certain words. (See also: "Super Bowl," "footlong" and "monster.")
Bateman IP Law Group, representing a company called Emergency Essentials, LLC, sent a cease and desist letter to a website owner, claiming its client has exclusive rights to the words "emergency essentials."
Dear Ms. [Recipient]:Seeing as this was sent Feb. 26th and the page is still live, the Emergency Lady was completely unfazed by the bogus claims, even when confronted with a hard copy of her own post. "Save a trademark, kill a tree," as the saying goes. While Emergency Essentials, LLC has done an admirable job of pushing down web results that
We represent Emergency Essentials, LLC. with respect to certain intellectual property matters. Emergency Essentials, LLC. and its predecessor has been operating for more than 25 years selling food storage and other emergency supplies. Emergency Essentials has spent substantial amounts of money in developing goodwill in its marks and has a large number of U.S. Trademark Registrations, including Registration Nos. 3,665,475; 3,659,764, 3,582,153; 3,582,152; 3,574,562; 3,571,179; 3,571,178; 3,571,177; 3,571,176; 3,571,175; 3,571,174; 3,571,173; 3,571,172; 3,568,952; 3,568,951; 3,439,473 for the mark EMERGENCY ESSENTIALS.
It has recently come to our attention that the website, www.theemergencylady.com. for which you are listed as the registrant, has been using the mark "EMERGENCY ESSENTIALS", as in the webpage found at www.theemergencylady.com/emergency_essentials_001027.html. (see exhibit, attached).
While Emergency Essentials appreciates the work your website is doing to promote emergency preparedness, it is also required to enforce its trademarks against those who are using the marks in such manner as may lead to a likelihood of confusion. After reviewing the website, we believe that consumers may incorrectly associate the website as being from or affiliated with our client. Therefore, we would respectfully request that you change the description on the website to replace the trademark "Emergency Essentials" with terms such as "emergency supplies," "emergency provisions," "emergency goods," or some other term which does not use our client's trademark. Likewise, we would request that you do not use "Emergency Essentials" unless you are referring specifically to our client.
Within 10 days of this letter please confirm that you have ceased all use of our client's mark. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter and wish you the best with your endeavor. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Very truly yours,
[Attorney Signature]
Enclosure: Exhibit [A print out of the web page at www.theemergencylady.com/emergency_essentials_001027.html]
Here's CNN with a list of emergency essentials. Here's Dr. Oz with another. Here's an emergency essentials list created by the Texas Department of Health.
Any feelings that the average person might confuse an "emergency responder in a rural area's" personal website with a company that markets dehydrated food and other disaster preparedness supplies reside solely in the vivid imagination of the company's trademark protection squad. And Bateman IP isn't just going after small-time website owners. It's also suing bigger names as well.
Here's its current lawsuit against Amazon for providing competitors' products in response to search results for "emergency essentials," as well as under the tag itself. Two C&D notices, sent three years apart, ask the online retailer to refrain from showing competitors' products on this "page" or in search results. Good luck with that.
But here's the most ridiculous aspect of Emergency Essentials, LLC's war of words. For a company so easily irritated by the use of common English words, it has no problem borrowing a well-known phrase as its own URL.
http://beprepared.com/
But this is apparently OK because the site carries the following disclaimer at the foot of the page.
EMERGENCY ESSENTIALS, LLC IS NOT AFFILIATED, ENDORSED BY OR HAS ANY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA®.Thanks for clearing that up. If it's good enough for the BSA, then one imagines a small disclaimer hidden somewhere at Emergency Lady's site or Amazon itself should eliminate any customer confusion without having to use awkward phrases or remove content. It seems incredibly hypocritical to pursue a site that sells no product but uses certain words while operating a site that sells products conceivably related to the general outdoorsiness of Boy Scouting under the name beprepared.com. (This URL choice likely has something to do with a legal battle over a domain name [theemergencyessentials.com] that doesn't seem to have panned out for the company.)
The letter claims the company is "required" to "enforce its trademarks" in situations of possible confusion, but there's nothing in trademark law that stipulates misguided actions like this one. A district court judge summed it up thusly:
The owner of a mark is not required to constantly monitor every nook and cranny of the entire nation and to fire both barrels of his shotgun instantly upon spotting a possible infringer.That's certainly what appears to be going on here.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: disaster preparedness, emergency essentials, trademark
Companies: emergency essentials llc
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Please oh please oh please
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Who's on First ...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Gotta google first
/s
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Owners of law degrees however, must monitor every nook and cranny for the existence of billable hours.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lost my future money.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ignorance is bliss, or at least legally safer
If it can be shown that they did know however, then it moves into the realm of 'willful infringement', and the potential fine amount gets drastically higher.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I just put together
[ link to this | view in thread ]
We represent "with respect LLC" & "intellectual property LLC" and would,like to discuss your recent letter to dear MS. recipient ....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Ignorance is bliss, or at least legally safer
Since Google is becoming ubiquitous with searching anything I can see a time when if you didn't do even a basic search (though google is NOT the place to do jurisdictional trademark searching) then their would be accusations of willful intent due to the inaction of not 'googling'.
On a similar stupidity it seems a whole bunch of US firms are now sending C&D's on Trademark to International websites, companies, & individuals trying to enforce US trademarks. What is happening over there? do you not have to do a core class regarding IP or something to get a JD anymore?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"Super Dumbassees of the Century LLC with respect to certain intellectual property matters. Super Dumbassees of the Century LLC and its predecessor, Intergalactic Idiots LLC has been operating for more than 25 years selling food storage and other emergency supplies. Super Dumbassees of the Century LLC has spent .......and so on"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
However, they will just have to survive on dehydrated beef strips and canned vegetables.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It's kind of refreshing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
We represent Respectfully Request, LLC. with respect to certain intellectual property matters. Respectfully Request, LLC. and its predecessor has been operating for more than 25 minutes providing cease and desist orders for companies in need. Respectfully Request has spent substantial amounts of money in developing goodwill in its marks and has a large number of U.S. Trademark Registrations.
It has recently come to our attention that you have used the term "respectfully request" in a comment on the website www.Techdirt.com.
While Respectfully Request appreciates the work your comment is doing to promote people not being asshats, it is also required to enforce its trademarks against those who are using the marks in such manner as may lead to a likelihood of confusion. After reviewing the comment, we believe that consumers may incorrectly associate the comment as being from or affiliated with our client. Therefore, we would respectfully request that you change the wording in the comment to replace the trademark "Respectfully Request" with terms such as "nicely ask," "meekly would like," or some other term which does not use our client's trademark. Likewise, we would request that you do not use "Respectfully Request" unless you are referring specifically to our client.
Within 10 minutes of this letter please confirm that you have ceased all use of our client's mark. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter and wish you the best with your endeavor. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Very truly yours,
High-paid, morally ambiguous attorney
[ link to this | view in thread ]
If they had a lick of sense...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Riposte
Our use of the expression "emergency essentials" should in no way be taken to imply a connection with [a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140530/04572827406/disaster-preparedness-company-thinks-pe ople-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-use-words-emergency-essentials.shtml"]Emergency Essentials, LLC[/a].
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Possibly a book on IP law, some instructions on how to respond to bogus C&D's, phone numbers (or 15 minutes of time from) an IP attorney, perhaps some kind of "don't be a troll" t-shirt?
I'd put up some cash for one, but it would also be great to be able to gift one to someone being a jerk like this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bullying By Means Of Threat Of Frivolous Litigation
http://nachista.blogspot.com/p/roadside-emergency-preparedness.html
If you read through my page it in no way, shape, or form sells competitors products, nor does it denigrate Emergency Essentials. If anything it promotes emergency awareness and encourages people to go out and buy product at their own discretion which can only help their company.
What galls me is how unprofessional they were about the letter sent to me, my name is spelled two different ways in the email and the letter. The original email didn't have anything attached so the paralegal had to send it a second time.
The attachment wasn't even a GOOD scanned copy of the letter. It looked like they had filled in a form letter, made a horrible black & white copy on a circa 1985 xerox machine, then scanned it in on the lowest resolution possible. The signature line is just a giant black box that looks redacted. The second page of my attachment is what I can only assume is a copy of my blog post or at least the title thereof, but is actually just a completely blacked out page. I've seen more professional looking correspondence from jail inmates.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Emergency Essentials
[ link to this | view in thread ]