the girl from auntie » More cafe followup

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More cafe followup

(Followup to this tempest in a guestbook.)

The, er, forum has a slightly different look, with new graphics. Take a look at ‘em. See that prize ribbon there? It reads:

For Licensing
Stitch & Bitch,
Stitch and Bitch Cafe
Click Here

However, there is no live link for that graphic.

Edit: Oh, and all the little graphics say “Stitch & Bitch TM” on them, too (at present, looks like they’re not physically available). CafePress makes t-shirts. Do they make bootstraps?

posted on 050524

3 Responses to “More cafe followup”

1
j. said on May 24th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
Yes, you can license an unregistered trademark. But hopefully the prospective licensee would do their homework first to determine that the licensor actually has rights to license before agreeing to pay up (i.e., we assume the licensee isn’t a sucker).

Maybe (she naively posits) they’re hoping someone will license “Stitch & Bitch” to them? Naw.
2
jenny said on May 26th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
eeesh! I just don’t understand their thinking at all. Bad public relations, an unregistered mark, requesting licensing fees (from who? non-profit crafting groups?) before they are capable of accepting agreements, offering product they don’t yet have….They need to focus on what they DO have instead. I also find the whole ‘patented teaching style’ pretty funny. They don’t have a patent either. Not my kind of people, these SFSE folks.
3
cross-post said on May 26th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
(i’m copying these comments from another board on SFSE actions):

They cannot claim they own it unless it’s in the class under which a knitting group would fall, which it isn’t. As posted above, they filed for:

IC 041. sewing instruction and manuals distributed in connection therewith.

IC 038. Providing on-line chat rooms for the transmission of messages among computer users concerning sewing via a global computer network.

First of all, Stitch N Bitch Chicago is not a forum, it’s an informational website. Secondly, it’s not even regarding sewing - it’s knitting! Any backlash SFSE gets for this, I feel they deserve.

Response: “They cannot claim they own it…”

If you’re talking about the “stitch & bitch” minus “cafe” unregistered mark, then the classes listed for their trademark registration are not necessarily relevant to any alleged ownership of the unregistered mark. It’s how they’ve been using the “stitch & bitch” mark that might give them any rights.