Comments on: FloridaWeekly.com Stands Up to CyberBully

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:27:16 +0000

The USPTO has [B]refused[/B] Florida Media Group’s Federal application for the “Florida Weekly” mark (http://www.floridaweekly.com/legal/USPTO%20refusal%20of%20FMG%20trademark.doc). They filed this application on the very day we spoke to them for the first time. They have only used (first use in commerce) the name “Fort Myers Florida Weekly” since April 2007 so they cannot even get a 2(F) registration.

Couple that with the facts that we bought and have been using the names two years before they existed and their recent admission (response) to making offers to buy the domain back in June 2007 before they even notified us about their recent use or C&D letter.

We’ll have more soon after we’ve reviewed the rest of their response…

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:08:53 +0000

The defendant, Florida Media Group LLC, has finally filed their response to our Federal lawsuit against them. We are still reviewing it before we fill our response back so I cannot issue any specific comments here about it until then. I will say that we were very happy that they finally stepped up after dragging this out for almost four months. Now we can get to the brass tacks.

You’ll find some of my next comments very interesting …

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:27:31 +0000

Thanks for the update, Ken. We’re all pulling for you.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:37:50 +0000

I just want to give everyone an update on the case.

We’ve tried for more than a month to negotiate with Florida Media Group LLC and their lawyers. We’ve even offered them arbitration and early mediation again and they have refused both. Their terms and responses to date have for the most part been unreasonable.

As of today we have told them to file their response to our lawsuit. If this pushes forward everyone will have an opportunity to see all the evidence once discoveries are completed.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:40:58 +0000

Thanks for the update, Ken.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:16:02 +0000

Florida Media Group LLC has retained new counsel and fired their first law firm, and our lawyer reports that this new counsel appears to be professional. That bodes well for a mutually agreeable solution, but one never knows what the other party wants.

Their deadline for a response had nearly passed before their new counsel, Holland and Knight, contacted us to ask for an extension. We granted them an extension to file their response and we have again offered arbitration before the INTA (International Trademark Association). We’re now waiting to hear back from them on that.

They also filed to remove the case from state court and send it to Federal court. Now the state trademark and their recently filed Federal trademark application are combined in the case.

Support:

We have posted some of our domains for sale on our support page . More extensions will be added soon. We are also offering advertising on floridaweekly.com as well as some of our other domains. Please contact us at sales@floridaweekly.com for more information. We are raising money and awareness to support this fight against a trademark bully.

Thanks everyone.

By: Bo

Bo — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 03:15:38 +0000

Florida Media Group, LLC have no right and domain owner should also sue for his legal costs. He should really do a Web blitz listing the papers they own with phone and e-mail address and get the public to contact them to stop their bullying. Bad publicity sometimes works better than the legal system.