The letter would go on to spout platitudes that “Judicial Watch seeks to ensure high ethical standards in the judiciary through monitoring activities and the use of the judicial ethics process to hold judges to account.”
The crux of the letter was that: “Our client contacted us regarding the People’s Vanguard of Davis’ adoption and use of the mark ‘YOLO JUDICIAL WATCH’ in connection with its civic ‘watch dog’ project relating to abuses in the legal system and by members of the judiciary.”
It goes on to argue: “While our client appreciates the invaluable public service your organization is offering to Californians and the Yolo County community, it is concerned that your use of the highly similar ‘YOLO JUDICIAL WATCH’ trademark in connection with your project will create confusion and leave the public with the impression that your organization is affiliated with, or endorsed by Judicial Watch, Inc., when in fact this is not the case.”
It is basically a cease and desist letter. Not one to be easily dissuaded or intimidated, I took the letter to the Vanguard’s cadre of attorneys. The bottom line is that, while it would have been a local case held in the Eastern District courthouse and heard by local judges, it made more sense in this case to change our name for a long list of reasons.
On March 1, 2012, two years and two months after launching the Yolo Judicial Watch project, we will be changing our name to Vanguard Court Watch of Yolo County. It is a name that incorporates the Vanguard name and keeps a mind toward our ultimate goal of bringing the court watch program to other counties in the future.
Our core mission of bringing integrity and transparency to the local courthouse remains intact and undisturbed. Our current group of interns will continue to monitor the day-to-day happenings in the courthouse and we will continue to bring the latest news and commentary about issues that impact our local courthouse.
Then again, after doing research on Judicial Watch and their founder Larry Klayman, perhaps it is the case that we that do not want to be associated with them.
Judicial Watch is an organization that describes itself as “a conservative, non-partisan American educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.”
According to its mission statement, Judicial Watch “advocates high standards of ethics and morality in America’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people.”
But the history of the organization paints it as more of a gadfly than anything else.
According to Wikipedia, “Founded by conservative attorney Larry Klayman in 1994, Judicial Watch came to public attention after filing 18 lawsuits against the administration of Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton and figures in the Clinton administration.”
In September of 2003, Mr. Klayman left the organization to run for Senate in Florida.
In 2006, Mr. Klayman sued Judicial Watch and its current president, Tom Fitton. “The lawsuit charged Fitton misrepresented his academic and professional credentials upon hiring, and upon assuming his position engaged in false and misleading fund raising, misuse of donor money, failure to appoint an attorney as Chairman, failure to comply with a promised severance package to Klayman, and other actions which damaged Judicial Watch, the donors and Klayman.”
According to Wikipedia, the majority of those claims have been dismissed. And in October 2009, a court found that Mr. Klayman had breached his severance agreement by failing to pay nearly $70,000 in personal expenses.
Mr. Klayman was apparently a shady figure. Newsweek reported in 1998 that he had even sued his own mother during a family spat.
Moreover, earlier this month, a Cuyahoga County [Ohio] prosecutor announced that Mr. Klayman had been indicted for failure to pay child support – he reportedly owes nearly $80,000 for two children ages 11 and 14.
So the mission will go on as Vanguard Court Watch, unencumbered with the bizarre strings of Judicial Watch and its founder Larry Klayman.
2008 Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Maurice Possley to Headline July Vanguard Court Watch Event
In addition to the name change, we have more big news. On July 26, 2012 Vanguard Court Watch will host its Second Annual Dinner and Awards Ceremony. This year our theme will be “Ending the Death Penalty.”
We are pleased to announce we have secured 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Maurice Possley as one of our keynote speakers this year.
Mr. Possley won his Pulitzer Prize for his three-part series co-authored with Steve Mills in the Chicago Tribune, “Did One Man Die for Another Man’s Crime?” which presented compelling evidence that Texas may have taken an innocent man’s life when it executed Carlos DeLuna.
Mr. Mills and Mr. Possley’s investigation documented Texas’ prosecution and execution of Carlos De Luna for the 1983 murder of a gas station clerk in Corpus Christi. Their review of the case found that Mr. DeLuna’s conviction and execution were compromised of shaky eyewitness identification, sloppy police work, and a failure to pursue another man who told friends and family he was the real killer. The articles were the result of more than nine months of reporting in Texas and several other states, involving dozens of interviews and review of thousands of pages of court records.
Mr. Possley’s earlier work with the Chicago Tribune was cited by former Illinois Governor George Ryan as playing a role in his decision to institute a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois in 2000.
Mr. Possley would work with the Chicago Tribune for 25 years, and then he moved to California to work with Northern California Innocence Project Executive Director Cookie Ridolfi to co-author, “Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California.”
Mr. Possley joins an all-star line-up for the July 26 event that includes Don Heller who wrote the 1978 Briggs Initiative that was passed by voters to become California Death Penalty Law; Former San Quentin Warden Jeanne Woodford who heads up the Death Penalty Focus; California Public Defender Ellen Eggers who represents death row inmates, and Franky Carrillo who was exonerated after serving 19 years on a murder charge.
The event will be held July 26, 2012 from 5:30 to 9:00 PM at the Heidrick AG History Center in Woodland, CA.
Last November we featured speakers who focused on the issue of preventing wrongful convictions. The dinner drew 300 people to hear Maurice Caldwell, a man wrongly convicted of murder who spent 20 years in prison before his March 2011 release, and speakers from the Innocence Project and the Northern California ACLU, as well as Yolo County Public Defender, Tracie Olson.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
What a crock. I had never heard of the national organization until I read this post. Now I find myself confused by their use of your term. You should be the one to demand that they cease and desist.
I like the change. Why waste time, money and resources fighting with an organization that has a bad track record?
That same outfit went after Yolo County’s presiding judge, David Rosenberg. He had to change the name of the timepiece he wears on his wrist from the Rosenberg Judicial Watch to Rosenberg’s Rolex.
[img]http://www.cashforgoldlakeforest.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/rolex.jpg[/img]
Actually, this guy has been a stain on the business of judicial watching ever since he started. You’ll do well to be even more disassociated with anything in which he’s ever been involved.
I hope your ambitions don’t outstrip your capabilities. I’d rather the Vanguard concentrate on what it has the resources to cover in a thorough and professional manner rather than just be another voice spouting off about general problems in the justice system.
No worries – sounds like the name change will be a benefit for the Vanguard, so as not to associate with an national organization that has questionable ethics. I would concur with JustSaying, to encourage Vanguard Court Watch to stick primarily to addressing specific local cases and why there may be a problem(s), rather than analyzing a local case based on what the Vanguard feels the law “should be”…
Speaking as a non-attorney, I noticed that the letter made no mention of the other group copyrighting the name. “Judicial Watch” is a rather generic term and probably unable to be legally protected. As far as confusion with the other agency, the insertion of the word, “Yolo” clearly makes this forum distinctive and unique. Finally, the disparity in political tone avoids virtually any possibility of the two groups being seen with the same sets of eyes.
I’d wager that the letter is a bluff and represents a hollow threat. But changing the name is the easier and more pragmatic solution. There’s that old saying about. ” . . getting into a fight with a skunk.”
Phil: We went round and round. The problem that we noticed is that Judicial Watch had two sources on google – one in reference to their group and one ours. Furthermore they had localized groups like Montana Judicial watch and other states which made their claim more plausible. In the end, we knew they had attorneys and they would litigate. It wasn’t worth the fight.
No, David, I understand completely. I have no emotional investment in this silly cat-fight at all, yet it just grates me to see these kinds of letters sent out over attorney letterhead.
Take comfort in the fact that they billed their client a tidy sum for a canned letter that took a para-legal about 40 seconds to complete. At least your adversary paid for a very expensive sheet of paper.
We have to pick our battles. More importantly, we pick battles only worth fighting, and winning.
[quote]In the end, we knew they had attorneys and they would litigate. It wasn’t worth the fight.[/quote]
[quote]We have to pick our battles. More importantly, we pick battles only worth fighting, and winning.[/quote]
Precisely. Vanguard Court Watch will do just as well as Yolo Judicial Watch – perhaps better, since we wouldn’t want the Vanguard in any way associated with an unethical company, no?!
This may or may not have been a bluff. Trademark is a fickle thing – sometimes if a name is “too close” to another, even if they are clearly the same, it will be deemed trademark infringement. Court is always a crap shoot for this sort of thing…
From [url]http://www.sans.edu/research/leadership-laboratory/article/quinn-ip-confusion[/url]:
[quote]Perhaps the most common trademark infringement theory is the likelihood of confusion. In fact, you do not even need to have a federally registered trademark in order to charge that someone else is causing a likelihood of confusion, although having a registered trademark does make the case much stronger. The reason that this theory is so common place is because most times individuals and businesses do not want to use the exact same trademark or name as another, but may want to use a trademark or name that is quite close. The question then becomes whether the chosen trademark, name, slogan or logo is too close to one that is already existing. Too close is determined by whether the relevant consuming public would likely be confused by the second mark.[1]
When the goods produced or services offered by the alleged infringer compete for sales with those of the trademark owner, infringement usually will be found if the marks are sufficiently similar that confusion can be expected. When the goods are related, but not competitive, several other factors are added to the calculus. If the goods are totally unrelated, there can be no infringement because confusion is unlikely.[/quote]
From [url]http://store.inventorprise.com/content_articles.php?id=1051[/url]:
[quote]However, like all forms of intellectual property, trademark law is a moving target. Somewhat contrary to what I just said about same marks being usable in different channels of commerce is the case of the two WWFs. As recently as 1994, the acronym was used under mutual agreement by both the World Wrestling Federation and the World Wide Fund for Nature, which had adopted it first. Then came the Internet. Suddenly WWF became significant to web surfers, and the wildlife charity felt the wrestling entity’s wwf.com was likely to be confused with wwf.org. Taking the wrestling organization to court, the charity prevailed. [/quote]
correction: even if they are clearly NOT the same
I think the company was probably worried Yolo Judicial Watch might pop up on a Google search before their name did, which might be an argument that could prevail in court…