the girl from auntie

This, finally:

For Immediate Release
March 12, 2009

Contact: Debbie Stoller, [redacted]
Gregory Garvin, [redacted although tempted]

HEADLINE: Sew Fast Sew Easy and Debbie Stoller Reach Agreement on Trademark

(New York, NY) ?Ǭ? Sew Fast Sew Easy and Debbie Stoller have reached an agreement over the use of the marks ?Ǭ?Stitch and Bitch Cafe?Ǭ? and ?Ǭ?Stitch ‘N Bitch.?Ǭ?

Under the terms of the agreement, Sew Fast Sew Easy’s ?Ǭ?Stitch and Bitch Cafe?Ǭ? mark will be limited to goods and services in the areas of sewing and embroidery, while Stoller?Ǭ?s ?Ǭ?Stitch ‘N Bitch?Ǭ? mark will be limited to goods and services in the areas of knitting and crochet.

“I am glad to report that we have amicably resolved our dispute and differences to the satisfaction of each party,” said Sew Fast Sew Easy’s Vice President, Gregory Garvin.

“We are all happy to put this dispute behind us and are urging all of our respective supporters and other concerned parties to likewise put this dispute behind them and discontinue any remaining boycotts,” said Debbie Stoller, author of the ?Ǭ?Stitch ‘N Bitch?Ǭ? series of knitting books.

# # #

This was in my inbox, not quite 10 months since it was announced that the press release would be “forthcoming”.

On that note, I suppose my next pattern is roughly “forthcoming”. Good! I have enough deadlines.

Evidently I was waiting out some kind of development to prompt me to blog… about anything.

Withdrawal (by Deb Stoller) of cancellation proceeding against STITCH & BITCH CAFE trademark (except I can’t get the second page of the filing to show up right now — I can only see the cover page).

Settlement? Moving on to the next great catchphrase? Anybody?

ETA: press release should be forthcoming.

No progress, check.

Request extension of time for another 2 months, check.

Request granted, check.

Let us all give thanks, and a tasty seed-filled treat, to our little bird who tells me it’s time for an update. This time, two things:

1. Another extension of time in the cancellation proceedings. The “remember I said?” schtick has officially overstayed its welcome, so let’s just check back on October 13, 2007.

2. I think I didn’t realize (or I had forgotten) that there is a Wikipedia entry for Stitch ‘n Bitch. This ignorance isn’t really surprising; a review of my search history indicates that I had recently consulted that site for “content management system” and “Lynda Carter” and “DIY culture”… but nothing knitting related. Sites like this, which pool the knowledge of users all over the world, are a terrific resource — as long as you realize that sometimes the contributors have their inherent biases or axes to grind.

At this point, you’re probably expecting to see an example illustrating this very point. How fortuitous!

Clicking on the link above will provide you with, of course, the current version of the Wikipedia article. It was actually a hard-fought battle to get it, and (temporarily) keep it, in that shape. Fortunately for us, Wikipedia tracks the changes that were made to an article since its creation, and you can see by following the edit history and the talk page that there have been several skirmishes over the article’s content. Even skimming the edit history gives you a hint of what happened. In short, the content of this article has flip-flopped between a version that mentions knitting groups using the name, the SFSE boycott, and various issues regarding the disputes involving SFSE, and other versions that omitted one or more of these things but expanded on SFSE’s services, like this one. (If this is an example of a pro-SFSE editor’s work, one wonders why the references to Debbie Stoller were left in. So that people searching for Stoller’s name would find this information about SFSE? Because deleting it would have been too radical an edit? I wonder.)

What has happened to this article is called edit warring, and as a consequence the article has been protected against further edits for a month. This isn’t the first time that this sort of thing has happened to this article, according to the history, but just for fun let’s take a look at the latest straw that might have broken the camel’s back.

Specifically, let’s step back to earlier today. There was some radical cutting and pasting to line 19.

It used to read:

In fall 2005, Sew Fast Sew Easy took legal action to police its trademark to prevent consumer confusion with products found on the internet. Due to letters claiming trademark infringement from Sew Fast/Sew Easy’s lawyers, knitting groups that had accounts with [[CafePress.com|CafePress]], an online merchandise site, were forced to remove all items featuring the phrase “Stitch ‘n Bitch”. Local groups that communicated with each other through [[Yahoo! Groups]] were similarly forced to remove “Stitch ‘n Bitch” from the name and description of their group.

But then it was changed to:

In fall 2005, Sew Fast Sew Easy took legal action to police its trademark to prevent consumer confusion with products found on the internet. In 2007, the internet encyclopedia [[Wikipedia]] was sent a cease and decist order requesting their company information be posted in the online encyclopedia since they are the legal trademark owners or have the entire article removed.

(Note: we don’t know that SFSE had its lawyers do this, since it could have been SFSE’s personnel who did this work, so the sentence referring to “Sew Fast/Sew Easy’s” lawyers may have been inaccurate.) But otherwise, who could have wished to delete this information about actions taken against knitting groups? I wouldn’t know. All I have are clues.

Item: IP address (which I didn’t bother looking up myself).

Item: Spelling and sentence structure.

Item: The edit refers to cease and desist correspondence. Unless this action were publicized (was it?), generally only two parties would know that a C&D letter had been sent: the recipient, and the sender. (Also their lawyers, but their lawyers wouldn’t be editing Wikipedia.)

Plus, the talk page for this article, where contributors can explain and debate the changes made, includes this unsigned comment in support of the August 17 edits:

This article will continue to be changed back until either Wikipedia removes this article or Debbie Stoller stops attacking Sew Fast Sew Easy. I support Sew Fast Sew Easy in their endevours to continue using their trademark which they have been using for years until Debbie Stoller decided to sue Sew Fast Sew Easy because she was denied trademark status.

Could this be the aforementioned “cease and desist order”? No, that would be too circular.

Hmm.

An inherent axe is a painful thing.

We interrupt the previous rant to bring you the latest news flash from the administrator of the Stitch & Bitch Cafe. I’m not certain what motivated the mass e-mailing, because this information has been posted on their own forum since June 22. But still, I know you’re not all checking that forum, so you’re missing the posts by “Hipster” about “big belts” and by “joefrankberg” about “How to earn money”.

I really enjoy that bit right after the header.

From: stitchnbitch@sewfastseweasy.com
Mailed-By: swishmail.com
Reply-To: stitchnbitch@sewfastseweasy.com
To: stitchnbitch@sewfastseweasy.com
Date: Jul 31, 2007 10:11 PM
Subject: Opening of the LIVE Stitch & Bitch Cafe

The following is an email sent to you by an administrator of “Stitch & Bitch Cafe”. If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the following address:

stitchnbitch@sewfastseweasy.com

Include this full email (particularly the headers).

Message sent to you follows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sew Fast Sew Easy proudly presents our newest project – the LIVE version of the Stitch & Bitch Cafe. Digital learning workstations in our retail location.

Stop into the cafe to learn to knit, sew or crochet, get your notions or find our when the next Stitch & Bitch nights are. Learn all the basics to knit or crochet or learn to sew a fly zipper or make a pair of low-rise men’s briefs for yourself or your boyfriend.

Thank you so much for the many letters of encouragement and for your continued patronage.

Sincerely,

Gregory Garvin

Vice President

Sew Fast Sew Easy, Inc.

Oh, look. He’s still there. And he’s the vice president!

Okay, the quoting myself gimmick is done, so here it is, plain and simple: another extension of time sought and granted in the great, excruciatingly boring trademark opposition battle between SFSE and Deb Stoller. The basis for the extension was that the parties continue to be in settlement discussions (you might wonder whether these settlement discussions are actually being pursued with diligence, or if, like the publisher of the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch books, they’re all napping).

Now: the discovery period is scheduled to close on August 14, 2007; SFSE’s opportunity to provide testimony will close on November 12, 2007, and Deb Stoller’s on January 11, 2008; and SFSE’s rebuttal testimony opportunity will end on February 25, 2008. Briefs on the merits from either side will be exchanged in the couple of months following that last date, so look for the parties to actually advance an argument on the merits in Spring 2008. Or maybe ask for another extension on August 14.

Ahem.

A few months ago, I said:

Remember that cancellation proceeding against the STITCH & BITCH CAFE mark? No? That’s all right, because not much has happened. Discovery was scheduled to close on November 6. The parties requested an extension of time from the TTAB (Trademark Trial and Appeal Board) to January 5. The reason given was that the parties were engaged in settlement discussions (which to my cynical self suggests that the parties probably had some form of settlement discussion, the lawyers were hoping that this would go away, but when it didn’t the parties had to actually had to examine each other’s representatives so they needed more time; so far, no notice of a settlement). The extension of time was granted, which was to be expected.

And then there was an amended answer filed, which resulted in a resetting of trial dates; discovery was set to close on March 17, after which it would be time for testimony. Now, I say:

Remember that cancellation proceeding against the STITCH & BITCH CAFE mark? No? That’s all right, because not much has happened. Discovery was scheduled to close on March 17. The parties requested an extension of time from the TTAB (Trademark Trial and Appeal Board) to June 15. The reason given was that the parties were engaged in settlement discussions (which to my cynical self suggests that the parties probably had some form of settlement discussion, the lawyers were hoping that this would go away, but when it didn’t the parties had to actually had to examine each other’s representatives so they needed more time; so far, no notice of a settlement). The extension of time was granted, which was to be expected.

Please resume your nap.

More fun! SFSE has filed an answer [PDF] to the amended petition.

Actually, it’s quite boring; there’s nothing exciting to say about anything here.

It’s probably time to move on to more exciting old topics, like the cashmere content scandal (which is still playing out, but is currently unexciting since everyone has rehashed the details over and over) and cancelling distribution agreements (which was almost overwith, but not quite).

If you search your memory, you might have recalled there was… some… what was it?

Oh yeah, some dispute over stitching concurrently with bitching. Right.

You’ve probably forgotten by now — I certainly did — that a motion to amend the petition to cancel that trademark, adding new grounds for cancellation, had been filed in April 2006. The response, naturally arguing against the amendment, was filed not long after. Last month, there was a ruling [PDF] on that motion: the amendment was allowed, because it would not prejudice the respondent’s (that’s SFSE’s) rights in the proceeding.

The scheduled event dates in this proceeding were reset as a result. Now, SFSE’s answer to this amended petition to cancel is due on January 11, unless there’s some last-minute federal statutory holiday hocus-pocus I’m not aware of. Discovery is now reset to close on March 17, and all the testimony periods end on September 28.

Unless, of course, there’s more occasion for delay.

In the meantime, of course, Deb Stoller has continued to fulfill her publishing contract, with the crochet and page-a-day calendar released under the SnB name in 2006, while SFSE launched a university, sold chocolates, rocked the online forum world with php (you watch out — they’ll discover blogs next) and… explained once and for all how to go about setting up a Stitch and Bitch™ Knitting Group. In only four steps! Four steps, like the handy guide previously published at stitchnbitch.org [PDF]!

No, no one has prioprietary rights to a method for setting up a knitting group in four steps. However, I think a little comparison might be instructive.

Lady Purl (if you’ve forgotten the stitchnbitch.org’s mascot’s name, she’s Purl, remember?) suggests that you:

1. Find a place to meet.
2. Set up a mailing list.
3. Pick a day and time.
4. Show up!

On the other hand, SFSE would have you:

1. Find a Suitable venue
2. Choose a Day & Time
3. Spread the Word

and…

4. Register your Knitting Group (at Stitch & Bitch Cafe®, natch).

Um. And?

You know, that’s the funny thing about knitting groups. New ones need a leader for a while before they can flourish on their own. It’s… like…

An online forum.

Yeah, that’s it. You can’t just set up a forum, sit back and say “here’s a place to post all about knitting!” and expect the public to participate, without doing something substantial to make the public want to post there. Otherwise, you just wind up with a long list of U.S. placenames and a small smattering of people asking if there’s anyone out there.

Lesson not learned yet, I guess.

Edited to add: Well, this needs to be amended: I’m not right to blame SFSE for innovative failure to note that one must show up to one’s own stitch ‘n bitch, because the correct source for their handy-dandy 4-point guide to setting up your own legally!sanctioned!knitting!group! isn’t the stitchnbitch.org guide. Not directly, anyway. Take a look at this and compare.

So, maybe there’s a different lesson to be learned.