There They Go Again

[Drewdane]

I wish I could say this was an isolated event, but it isn’t.

And while it’s true IANAL, I did stay in a Holiday Inn once, and I’m pretty darned certain Specialized’s stance on trademark protection doesn’t come close to meeting any standard of “reasonable interpretation”.

http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2013/12/07/war-veteran-forced-to-change-bike-shops-name-after-threat-from-u-s-bike-giant-specialized/

Topic

[vvill]

@jrenaut 81790 wrote:

I’m sure it won’t make a difference, but I’m renting a bike in CA in May for the Wine Country Century. The place I found to rent had a Specialized and a Lapierre in my size. Due to Specialized’s overzealous legal team and general corporate grouchiness, I went with the Lapierre.

I would pick the Lapierre over most bikes! Just because I haven’t ridden one before, and they seem slightly exotic.

They also have some interesting custom fork decals.

[Tim Kelley]

@thucydides 81798 wrote:

Yeah I knew about that one and had mixed feelings about it. I could at least kinda maybe see Specialized’s point on that, especially with the whole protect it or lose it aspect of US trademark law.

How did that turn out again? Something about the Fuji parent company being the one who owned the trademark and was just licensing it to Specialized?

[hozn]

@thucydides 81798 wrote:

Then again alize basically means “wind” in French. Allez means “go” but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that its etymology goes back to wind.

I don’t think so:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliz%C3%A9
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/aller

Without too much research the attributed root “alis” in Latin seems to be a form (dative) of ala/alae “wing”.

Man Specialized’s lawyers generate the worst PR for that company.

[cyclingfool]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5141[/ATTACH]

Credit: Bikesnob NYC

[scorchedearth]

@Arlingtonrider 71316 wrote:

Cafe Roubaix has some very nice Tshirts and other clothing available for purchase – a good way to show support. I really hope people will shame Specialized into dropping this. I don’t know Canadian law, but I don’t think anyone should be able to trademark the name of a region of a country.

I found the application for the trademark and the arguments that the attorney made in response to an office action issued by the PTO and it was ridiculous. The trademark examiner was rejecting the trademark of Roubaix by stating that trademarking a name of a place that is associated with a famous bike race made it invalid. The response by the attorney for Fuji was that something along the lines of ‘we can’t expect the average American cyclist to know the name of a town in France by searching through databases and its association with an obscure bike race that ends there.’

I want to be able to overcome office actions with condescending arguments like this one.

[jrenaut]

No one ever lost money underestimating American cyclists’ knowledge of European geography.

With apologies to H.L. Mencken.

[thucydides]

@hozn 81802 wrote:

I don’t think so:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliz%C3%A9
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/aller

Without too much research the attributed root “alis” in Latin seems to be a form (dative) of ala/alae “wing”.

Man Specialized’s lawyers generate the worst PR for that company.

Okay, it was an ignorant guess on my part. I do know enough French to know that they aren’t at all pronounced alike either, though perhaps Specialized’s contention is that American’s aren’t sophisticated enough figure out that allez and alize don’t sound alike. Regardless as you note, whatever the technical legal merits may or may not be, the PR side of it is a disaster. Everywhere you turn on the net they’re getting creamed for this.

[jrenaut]

Well, part of the problem is our intellectual property law. And that laws for consumer protection are now more commonly used to stifle (or at least irritate) competition. But Specialized is a private company – they’re still allowed to have a soul.

[jabberwocky]

Specialized seems to spend most of the money their customers give them on marketing and stupid legal bullying. The obvious solution is to stop giving them so much money. Seriously. Sure, they make decent bikes, but there are dozens of companies out there that make bikes just as nice and usually cheaper to boot.

[Author]

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