Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04830.html --- Subject: FW: volocars.com (KMM321944V38895L0KM) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:57:01 +0900 Message-ID: <716FC52867369B4B9142EDC3924C6A3A7732E3at_private> From: <Renfield.Kurodaat_private> To: <declanat_private> I sent a comment from Ford's (Volvo's) website volvocars.com and got the following prompt response. Wow, the corporate arrogance is overwhelming. They obviously care more about their precious brand than they care about the damage to their image, the weakness of their argument about customers being confused, or the obviously 'right thing'. Regards, r e n -----Original Message----- From: Customer Service [mailto:customerserviceat_private] Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 10:48 PM To: Kuroda, Renfield (IT) Subject: Re: volocars.com (KMM321944V38895L0KM) Dear Renfield: Thank you for contacting us regarding the recent articles about the domain name of the Volo Car Museum. We wish everyone to know that Volvo has not asked the museum to change their name or any other aspect of their business. We have only asked that they modify/change their Internet web IP to something that will not confuse web visitors searching for Volvo car information. The values and qualities the Volvo brand expresses are what make the company unique. From the very beginning, safety and quality have stood at the heart of the development of all Volvo products and services. It is on these values and qualities that the Volvo corporate identity, brand position and legal status have been founded. Today's core brand values of quality, safety and care for the environment remains central to Volvo's brand position. They express what Volvo believes in as a company and will ultimately help it to survive. We have been in discussions with Volo Car Museum for some months, trying to reach a solution. Since we have not been able to come to a mutual agreement, we have asked for an independent ruling as to both parties positions. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) located in Geneva, Switzerland will arbitrate this matter shortly. At this time, there is no ruling from WIPO. Our position has been and will always be to protect our brand in a manner consistent with customer's expectations and to remain true to our founding set of values. We thank you for taking the time to share your comments and allowing us to respond. Sincerely, Chris Horgan Volvo Cars of North America Original Message Follows: ------------------------ What, exactly, is it with your lawyers? Do you honestly believe you do ANY good -- Ford's, your customers', internet users' in general -- with such frivolous nonsense as to hassle a small-town Illinois car museum? I recommend you fire all your overpaid lawyers and replace them with touchy-feely PR people who should immediately start apologizing, because what you have on hand is not a legal issue, it's an assine Big Corporate America Destroys Its Own Image nightmare. Congratulations: I will now absolutely, positively, never ever buy a Volvo or any other motor vehicle from the Ford family. And I am not alone. Regards, renfield kuroda proud to not own a Volvo or a Ford ascii: r e n f i e l d octal: \162 \145 \156 \146 \151 \145 \154 \144 hex: \x72 \x65 \x6e \x66 \x69 \x65 \x6c \x64 Enterprise & Client Technologies --- From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunkerat_private> To: declanat_private Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 02:22:00 -0500 Subject: Re: FC: VolvoCars.com tries to grab VoloCars.com museum website Reply-to: Thomas Junker <tjunkerat_private> Message-ID: <3EE69248.2405.7AFE882@localhost> Priority: normal Declan, This Volvo vs. Volo nonsense is completely over the top. I'd like to suggest to the community of people interested in the kind of abuse reported to have been engaged in by Volvo in this matter that we try to cooperate in formulating an aggressive response designed to make a chilling example of one of the next gaggles of lawyers and their client who come waddling down this road trying to uproot and hijack the public persona of a pre-existing business. In a sane world there can be *no* question of bad faith on the part of a business like the Volo Auto Museum, reportedly in business long before Volvo cars were first imported into the U.S. and decades before there was a World Wide Web. In a sane world, Volvo's lawyers would end up disbarred and Volvo would end up hit with such a large countersuit judgment that it would have to liquidate to pay off even part of it. In a sane world, every other lawyer involved in IP games would make a note to himself to never, *ever* try such a stunt. In a sane world, the consequences for doing what Volvo is reported to have done would be *so* severe that law schools would teach budding lawyers to strictly avoid such nonsense. What about some good minds getting together to lay out a strategy that could, with the right case, deliver a stunning, catastrophically overwhelming counterblow to the IP ex post facto hijackers like Volvo? I don't know whether or not it is too late for Volo Auto Museum, but from the reports they sound like the perfect case to take to the wall. Why should multi-billion-dollar awards only occur in Stupid Smoker Suits (TM)? Why should spilling hot coffee in one's own lap be worth millions while innocent victims of wholly illegitimate IP hijackings can't or don't get their licks in? What's wrong with this picture? The whole field of IP is getting far out of control. Incredibly, prior art is now regularly patented. Companies like Volvo go to the WIPO to *steal* domains and trade names from innocent businesses established long before their attackers. Software and things like obvious and inevitable transaction managment methodologies are being granted patents. I knew there was trouble ahead when someone applied [in the 1960s?] for a patent on decimal-binary conversions, which *all* of us had been doing for years as a matter of course and regularly asked programming job candidates to demonstrate as evidence of at least rudimentary familiarity with programming. Decimal-binary conversions had not only been around as long as computers, they were considered *obvious*, merely intuitive and inevitable implementations of the number base arithmetic. Something must be done. I suggest that some organization and effort are required in two areas: 1. Making it overwhelmingly costly to assert fallacious and false claims of improper and "bad faith" trade name or patent usage against innocent entities with prior existence, prior registrations, prior usage, or the existence of prior art. What cost in money would make Volvo dearly sorry they had every attacked the Volo Auto Museum? $500 million? $5 billion? $50 billion? What cost would get their executives and directors sacked? What cost would cause their shares to tank? How could appropriate, overwhelming costs be imposed? Through aggressive litigation? Through marketplace actions? Through new, killer fines to deter future weasel attacks? 2. Seeking legislative measures to kill abuses before they are hatched. Individuals who are charged with relatively innocuous things these days are subject to decades of prison and millions in fines. How much more damaging are gross assaults on small businesses by 500-lb gorillas such as Volvo? Should they not be subjected to prison terms for the lawyers and executives and *billions* in fines and restitution? This problem isn't going to be solved defensively, or by pansy-ass warding off of the growing onslaught of mindless IP lawyers acting for irresponsible and clueless corporate clients. If it can be solved at all it will only be so by aggressive, proactive planning and action, preferably on multiple fronts. A case such as the Volo Auto Museum's should be seized on by everyone who considers the new IP trends dangerous to business and humanity, and the defense and counterattack by the Museum and on the Museum's behalf should be treated as an *offensive* against against the forces abusing IP law and concepts. When a case like the Museum's comes up, it should be viewed as an opportunity to utterly destroy the abuser, not merely fend him off. Volvo should be hurt *so* badly it ends up in the Corporate Intensive Care Unit, figuratively bleeding, with broken bones, brain damage, and penniless. We should take a cue from the Feds in this: play for keeps, go for the throat, and give no quarter. Regards, Thomas Junker tjunkerat_private ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jun 11 2003 - 21:45:27 PDT