Geek Squad Sends Cease-and-Desist Letter To God Squad

An anonymous reader writes "A Wisconsin priest has God on his car but Best Buy's lawyers on his back. Father Luke Strand at the Holy Family Parish in Fond Du Lac says he has received a cease-and-desist letter from the electronics retailer. From the article: 'At issue is Strand's black Volkswagen Beetle with door stickers bearing the name "God Squad" in a logo similar to that of Best Buy's Geek Squad, a group of electronics troubleshooters. Strand told the Fond du Lac Reporter that the car is a creative way to spur discussion and bring his faith to others. Best Buy Co. tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it appreciates what Strand is trying to do, but it's bad precedent to let groups violate its trademarks.'"

Comments

Logo

[g0bshiTe]

http://www.i4u.com/37852/omg-geek-squad-wants-sue-priest The priests logo. And we all know what Geek Squad logo looks like.

Re:Logo

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

The Geek Squad colors are reversed. Orange up top black on bottom.

Does that mean that Geek Squad is Satanic?

Re:Logo

[morari]

No, Best Buy isn't mad eup of Satanists. They appreciate what he's trying to do.

Best Buy Co. tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it appreciates what Strand is trying to do, but it's bad precedent to let groups violate its trademarks.

That just gives me yet another reason to not shop at Best Buy. Never mind they annoying and idiotic employees, they appreciate evangelists!

Re:Logo

[oldspewey]

Hold on a second, doesn't the type of service being offered play a factor as well? Unless this pastor offers a service where he comes into your home, searches for porn images on your computer, and then passes those images around to his buddies, I don't think there's a case for infringement here.

Re:Logo

[Zeek40]

The problem is that Best Buy needs to send him a Cease and Desist when they become aware of possible infringement or they waive their rights to assert the trademarks in other cases. It's not that they want to be dicks to that particular guy, it's that if they let him get away with it, they lose their right to assert trademark infringement in future cases. The Icons and VW Bug thing are close enough that no reasonable person would say it's not derivative of Geek Squad's logos, so if they let him get away with it they have to let everyone get away with it. There is significant legal precedent that non-asserted trademarks are not valid trademarks. It's much safer for them to just send this guy a C&D than to have a different, real trademark infringement case a year down the road where the defense claims that Geek Squad was aware of other trademark violations that they took no action to end those violations, therefore their trademark claim should be thrown out.

Re:Logo

[wiredlogic]

Best Buy could do the right thing and still protect their trademark by offering to license his usage for a token fee like $1.

Re:Logo

[RobertLTux]

and in some cases prayer may work better than geek squad

Ugh

[jschmitz]

I don't know which "squad" is more f____g annoying.............

In other news..

[Anonymous Coward]

Best Buy lawyer struck by lightning.

unfair competition

[grapeape]

They were probably just worried that "prayer" might prove more effective than the typical geek squad employee and cut into business.

Re:unfair competition

[IICV]

Yeah, you hafta recite the Chant of Damnation* at least once every time you go through the Ritual of Restarting in order to appease the machine spirit.

Failure to do so is the leading cause of bluescreens (little known fact!)

*You know, the one that goes "Damn Windows, damn Microsoft, damn Gates...."

Re:This just proves

[Spatial]

No, it proves that geeks aren't running Geek Squad.

Simple solution for these cases

[Fnkmaster]

I know that legally companies have to enforce trademarks or risk losing them. However, for a case like this where there is no actual damage to their business and no real risk of confusion, the best solution from a PR perspective would be to offer a royalty-free license to the trademark and its variant to the person in question.

You know, instead of the traditional "cease-and-desist" letter, you could send a "we notice you borrowed from our logo - we are required to contact you by trademark law, and we will offer you a royalty-free license for this use, in a limited context, if you get in touch with us".

That would completely avoid the nasty press these companies for doing this, and keep the trademark lawyers happily occupied.

Why can't we live in the kind of more civil society where we look for positive solutions to problems in this way instead of simply defaulting to the negative?

Re:Simple solution for these cases

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory, maybe that would be a good idea, but in practice it's walking into dangerous territory. First off, it could be seen as endorsement of this guys message, and corporations generally try to avoid religious endorsements since it puts them at odds with all other religions. This gets especially tricky if then other religions start to ask for the same treatment. What if an Islamist group wants to do the same thing? If Best Buy says no, they piss off 1.4 billion Muslims, and also look discriminatory. If they say yes, they piss off a nation full of fear mongerers and bigots who accuse them of terrorism. There's a million other ways that could go poorly, Best Buy really has no choice but to put a stop to this.

Re:Simple solution for these cases

[Ksevio]

If it were only one time it might be ok, but religious groups seem to think themselves exempt from trademark and copyright law.

There are lots of stories of religious groups copying whatever they like to put religious propaganda on them. I remember when the lord of the rings came out, one group took the movie poster, replaced "Ring" with "King" and replaced Gandalph with Jesus. Now you may say that's just parody, but I don't really buy it when the point is to promote a religious message, not poking fun of the original.

Re:Simple solution for these cases

[S.O.B.]

I think you should reread the GP again. He referred to "a nation full of fear mongerers and bigots who accuse them of terrorism". He did not claim that all Christians were fear mongers and bigots he said the nation was.

And after the all the crontroversy over the planned Islamic information centre (not a mosque as the media portrays) near ground zero it's a fair assessment. Especially since there are other Islamic information centres in the area that pre-date the completion of the first World Trade Center building.

But hey, when did fear mongers and bigots let silly things like facts get in the way.

Re:Trademark

[maotx]

Found out a little bit more. Unless you're going to confuse God Squad for Geek Squad, this doesn't appear to have a leg to stand on.
From 1114. Remedies; infringement; innocent infringement by printers and publishers emphasis mine

• (1) Any person who shall, without the consent of the registrant—
  (a) use in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive; or
  (b) reproduce, counterfeit, copy, or colorably imitate a registered mark and apply such reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation to labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptacles or advertisements intended to be used in commerce upon or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive,

Then again, IANAL

Re:Parody?

[SatanicPuppy]

Nah, doesn't apply because it's not ironic, and it's not targeted at the Geek Squad.

If you did a car that looked like the geek squad car, with a logo that was the same except it said, "Week Squad" and ran around fixing peoples computers with a sledgehammer, and filming it...THAT would be parody.

Or in this case, if these people ran around praying over peoples computers and did it specifically to make fun of the Geek Squad, that would be legit.

Having the same logo on a legitimate enterprise isn't protected by parody/freedom of expression laws.

Re:Obviously overzealous

[qwijibo]

There's more overlap than you may think. Geek Squad caters to many Windows users. Anyone on Slashdot running Windows knows that prayers are a big part of it continuing to work on a day to day basis.

Re:Srsly?

[hey!]

OK, here goes. The issue is not that the church is creating customer confusion by between its services and Best Buy's. The issue is that its misappropriation of the trademark *dilutes* the value of that trademark to its rightful owner.

There are classes of ways in which dilution can occur, both of which potentially apply here: loss of distinctiveness, and tarnishment. (1) Best Buy has invested considerable money in creating a recognizable symbol. By misappropriating that symbol, the church is denying them the benefit of that investment by reducing the distinctiveness of the service mark. (2) Many of Best Buy's potential customers may have negative opinions of the Catholic Church because of its handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The church's misuse of Best Buy's service mark "tarnishes" that mark with a scandal to which Best Buy is not a party. Even supposing you think such a reaction to the scandal is unreasonable and excessive, that reaction should be the church's problem, not Best Buy's. If Best Buy drove around in cars emblazoned with the ecclesiastical arms of the local archbishop, he'd have a right to object that the dignity of his see shouldn't be tied to the quality of service Best Buy offers its customers.

Both of these arguments hinge on the fact that the logo used on the vehicles is obviously a copy of the Geek Squad logo. It is simply not credible that the priest arrived at this design on his own. If he'd come up with the "God Squad" name and his own logo, that would be a different matter. You can have a "Speedy Pizza Delivery" and a "Speedy Muffler Service" because they're in different industries, but if the pizza shop copies the Speedy Muffler trademark to promote their business, they've gone over the line.

In summary, there gray areas in trademark use, but this use is not one of them. Clearly the church is violating Best Buy's trademark rights. I don't think they are intending harm, and I think in cases of such non-commercial uses it might be nice if the trademark owner was polite and understanding rather than threatening. Nonetheless, the church really ought to cease and desist using Best Buy's trademark for its own purposes, even if it believes those purposes are admirable.