Shelby is at it again

Sorta OT: there are law firms around the world which troll Web sites looking for alleged infringements of trademarks etc. The Jensen Healey Preservation Society is www.jensenhealey.com and the guy who runs it got a letter from some group of Esqs.in Switzerland telling him that someone owned the rights to the Jensen Healey name and that he was to forthwith cease and desist and turn over all profits yada yada... or pay them $400 a month to use the name. Said funds to be forwarded to their client, of course. He wrote them a letter back telling them in effect no one owns the rights to the name and to put up or shut up. They sent a couple more blustery letters, then it died out.

Jensenman wrote: Sorta OT: there are law firms around the world which troll Web sites looking for alleged infringements of trademarks etc. The Jensen Healey Preservation Society is www.jensenhealey.com and the guy who runs it got a letter from some group of Esqs.in Switzerland telling him that someone owned the rights to the Jensen Healey name and that he was to forthwith cease and desist and turn over all profits yada yada... or pay them $400 a month to use the name. Said funds to be forwarded to their client, of course. He wrote them a letter back telling them in effect no one owns the rights to the name and to put up or shut up. They sent a couple more blustery letters, then it died out.

It might be pretty hard to enforce a judgement from a Swiss Court in the United States. It would be even harder and more expensive for Swiss attorneys to come to the US to try an infringement case. I am not surprised this never went beyond the BS phase.

Yeah, well, ya'll just better watch the use of "17" and "Fish." That's all I'm sayin'.

Why don't we find a way for all of us to contribute a few $ to FFR's legal defense. We might not raise the biggest war chest ever, but it would be hugely symbolic and could be spun into a PR nightmare for Shelby and Ford.

Type Q wrote: Why don't we find a way for all of us to contribute a few $ to FFR's legal defense. We might not raise the biggest war chest ever, but it would be hugely symbolic and could be spun into a PR nightmare for Shelby and Ford.

I like that idea. You want to head it up with FFR? I've got the first donation. I want to build a Daytona coupe one day and I love FFR's stuff.

Already done. The link in the op of this thread takes you to the FFR Cobra forum post that detaile the issues. There, the site owner is seeking legal fund donations.

See here: http://www.ffcobra.com/forums/showthread.php?t=206492

This from a guy who combined a British car he didn't create with a Ford engine he also did not create.

I really get confused sometimes about what can be trademarked. Richard Childress has successfully trademarked the use of a block letter #3 as used on Earnhardt's car.

How the heck can someone trademark a number?

Shelby is a wacko. I find it telling when someone concentrates on litigation rather than building a better product. I'm no computer guy, but it's my understanding that some companies don't even bother with patents, because by the time they get a patent, the idea or technology is outdated. I think to a fair degree this applies to cars too: those who have run out of creativity pursue the litigation vice innovation. Porsche doesn't worry about 356/550 replicas because they are not competitive with their new products in any way. As long as you are innovating new ways to make them cheaper, faster, etc, then you are going to be ahead- that's why FFR is successful.

I also couldn't agree more with BAMF- Shelby's cars are a glorified engine swap and not terribly original in the first place. They are a very successful engine swap, but an engine swap nonetheless.

Dr. Hess wrote: Yeah, well, ya'll just better watch the use of "17" and "Fish." That's all I'm sayin'.

better fire up the lawyers

http://www.fishrestaurant.net/cms_pages/index.php

randyvr6 wrote: I really get confused sometimes about what can be trademarked. Richard Childress has successfully trademarked the use of a block letter #3 as used on Earnhardt's car. How the heck can someone trademark a number?

Put up a shirt design on CafePress and see what gets a legal letter. it's insane. Why? Because not only are many designs considered infringements, the tags/keywords you put on the images to allow effective searches are ALSO grounds for infringement.

I originally got a cease and desist letter from a Ford lawyer for this design:

...because amongst the many car related keywords (hot rod, street rod, custom car, etc) was the word Ford. The image is a generic '30s car, and it doesn't say Ford in the design, but because one of the KEYWORDS for searching was Ford, they had CafePress pull the design or face lawsuit.

Without the Ford keyword you CAN run that design. I had a morphed Capri drag racer (put some non Ford touches to stop design infringement) and once I removed the "capri" and "mustang" meta tags th3ey kept it in.

If you look at a lot of ads for aftermarket parts there will be a Taurus looking car with a morphed grille. They do that to keep the OEs from litigating the hell out of them.

Snowdoggie wrote:

Moparman wrote:

P71 wrote: Sad, just sad. I wonder if he puts as much effort into "defending" his rights on his other E36 M3. Like the Shelby Dakota. He's definitely gone from idol/hero to grumpy old bastard in my book.

Want to buy my Shelby Dakota #233? He is getting grumpy. Want to know who really developed the Cobra? It was Alan Turner at AC Cars Ltd. Thames Ditton Surrey, England.

Isn't that the same guy who built the Turners?

That was Jack Turner, I believe.

John Brown wrote: Without the Ford keyword you CAN run that design. I had a morphed Capri drag racer (put some non Ford touches to stop design infringement) and once I removed the "capri" and "mustang" meta tags th3ey kept it in. If you look at a lot of ads for aftermarket parts there will be a Taurus looking car with a morphed grille. They do that to keep the OEs from litigating the hell out of them.

The problem is that people searching for car designs tend to use manufacturer names. If you're looking for a hot rod design, you often do use the Ford name in the search engine. I say that going after the tags and keywords themselves is no more trademark infringment than mentioning it in casual converstion (like us talking about it now). They should ONLY go after registered trademarks in actual produced designs, not in the descriptions of the designs.

Chris, What you have there is lawyers, while waiting for their Big Box Store Poof, on staff and being paid by a large corporation (Ford in the T-shirt case) looking around for someone to threaten to justify their salary. Obviously, that logo above has no infringement on Ford, anymore than it does on my claim to "17" and "Fish" (R) as it relates to automobiles and broccoli. However, some esquire ran out of stuff to do and was afraid of getting canned, so he pumped "Ford" into google and started looking for web sites to send nasty letters to. At his job review, he can now add one more website he "shut down" that was "infringing on Ford" and he gets to keep his job for another few months, pending a BBSP.

CafePress simply rolls over early, they're not interested in fighting copyright battles. That's not their business plan. They put pictures on things. Copyright scuffles are your job.

I had a discussion with Mazda's lawyers about some posters we were printing of our own cars - including one sponsored by Mazda. CafePress pulled them because they were cars, and were willing to reinstate them if I got a letter from Mazda saying it was okay. Mazda had no problem with the car pictures - but the word "Miata" (as in Flyin' Miata) was not cool. It went back to a lawsuit between Mazda and the Miyata bicycle company, Mazda could not produce or authorize products with the Miata name other than cars or things directly related therein. If our company name had been "Flyin' MX-5", no problem. That's why the 2006 is officially an MX-5, by the way. They don't have a problem with our company name either and they weren't going to come after us if we printed something, they just couldn't give us official written blessing to produce a poster for our own use that said "Miata" because of the previous litigation.

Many companies who had based their business plans on trademark infringement (sticking the Miata logo on everything, like bar stools) did get shut down by Mazda because, well, they were infringing on trademarks for profit. But the forums don't and legitimate companies don't.

randyvr6 wrote: I really get confused sometimes about what can be trademarked. Richard Childress has successfully trademarked the use of a block letter #3 as used on Earnhardt's car. How the heck can someone trademark a number?

He didn't trademark the number 3, just the style in which it appeared on the car, the white block style number, leaning to the left, with a red outline.

above photo copyright of Wallace B Miller III all rights preserved

Dave Smith of FFR said the following on FFcobra

Dave Smith (FFR prez) said: This past December, Factory Five was served with a lawsuit from Carroll Shelby. The claims in the suit focus primarily over the shape or the “trade-dress” of the Type 65 Coupe. We were a bit amazed at this lawsuit as Shelby agreed to a court order that specifically precluded him from doing just this. Indeed. in February, 2001, FFR and Shelby mutually agreed to the entry of a Consent Judgment (“Order”) in the litigation brought by Shelby in the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts whereby, among other things, Factory Five agreed not to use the word “Cobra” to describe our products. Factory Five agreed to this since it was not using these marks anyway and, for obvious reasons, it wanted to avoid any association whatsoever with Shelby. In return, Shelby agreed to forever dismiss any claims relative to the shape of the Factory Five Roadster and Type 65 Coupe and other designs. The exact words of the 2001 Order are as follows… ”… Shelby dismisses with prejudice all claims that have been asserted or could have been asserted relative to the trade dress or designs of FFR’s kits, including but not limited to the kits known as the 427 Roadster and the Type 65 Coupe…” Further, if Shelby believed that FFR was in violation of any part of the Order; for instance one of our guys inadvertently wrote an advertisement using the word COBRA, the Order required Shelby to give FFR 30 days notice to remedy any purported breach. In sum, pursuant to the Order, Shelby is precluded from filing a lawsuit without the agreed to notice and opportunity to cure. FFR required that this language be included in the Order because we knew Shelby was litigious to the extreme and we also knew that the entire planet, all the customers, and the industry in general, refers to these cars as “Cobras” in a purely generic sense and the risk that someone might make a mistake was real. To this day, I believe that FFR is among the one or two companies/entities/people that consistently identifies our products as our own rather than “Cobras”. Even worse, not only did Shelby violate the Order in filing the lawsuit, he sued over the shape of a car that had already been litigated and dismissed eight years ago. What do we do now? We have filed a motion seeking to have the California Court to change the venue to Federal Court in Massachusetts which endorsed and entered the Order in 2001. If that is allowed, we will then seek to have the lawsuit dismissed as well as damages and/or sanctions for malicious prosecution and contempt of court. All this is just a big waste of time and money for FFR. The fact that the website FFCOBRA was named along with the good guys at LK Motorsports is, in my opinion, harassment. FFR removed our link to FFCobra, not because it was a violation of the Order or because we had to, but instead to mitigate the litigation costs, particularly where Shelby is claiming that FFCOBRA is an agent of FFR. Nothing could be further from the truth. FFR is just fine financially and is not asking any customers for legal defense money. The issues involving the claims against FFCobra and LK Motorsports are another thing. Bill runs FFCobra and since we have cancelled our ads with them, I think customers banding together to defend their own rights is a good thing. Some other things to consider. We hear that Shelby is suing Kirkham for counterfeiting after using them as a supplier for years (you didn’t think that Shelby built those aluminum body cars did you?). Shelby makes claims against a website that is customer based and doesn’t sell or make “Cobras”. Why didn’t he sue Club Cobra or any of the myriad of websites that use the word “Cobra”. Why is Shelby suing us? Who knows. Some people familiar with this suit believe that Shelby saw our Land Speed Record Coupe across from his booth at the November SEMA show and got mad, simple as that. The original Coupe went 186 mph or so, yet FFR’s went 216 mph and next year the crew at SoFast Racing say that 250-275 mph is not out of the question at Bonneville. Anyone from Shelby is welcome to join us on the salt or on any track in the country where we prefer to settle our differences rather than in court. Unfortunately, the memory of what Shelby did in the 60’s is rapidly being replaced with the image of the most litigious guy in the auto industry. Even Car & Driver Magazine recently type-cast as Carroll as “$helby” (notice the dollar sign) in an article that sadly chronicled his never-ending legal nonsense. Some familiar? In the end, FFR knows that it has done the right thing and fully believes that it will prevail in this most frivolous action. Stay tuned. *Sigh* David Smith President

"and, for obvious reasons, it wanted to avoid any association whatsoever with Shelby"

That is just epic. I hope FFR wins.

Fer all you naysayers, the chili is great(double up on the spice packets) add some o that spicey sausage from Costco tm and pay attention. He was a chicken farmer who restored(briefly) American pride in the"We can whup a** in anything we choose to" spirit. Ford spit in the eye of Ferrari (or the other way round) and backed it up. Told he was a dead man, everything since the heart transplant is suspect, but give the guy a break. I have to wonder if the biggest whiners are the people who can afford an original. Seeing him on the infomercial for whatever product makes me think of Muhammid Ali.

The chili mix is pretty good. I also don't ignore all the things Shelby did back in his heyday. He's at the point where it's just, for lack of a better word, unseemly to be raising hell over this.

I watched that special on SPEED (or whatever) a few years ago where they showed that 'updated' Ford built Cobra (oh crap I'm gonna get sued!) replica and they mentioned his heart transplant etc. Too bad they didn't implant an appreciation for the many tributes to his genius at the same time. 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.'

FWIW, I still think FoMoCo is more behind the whole thing than he is. But if he's allowing himself to be used that way he's just as guilty as they are.

That's his whole problem! They pulled out his heart. The man just ain't the same without a heart.

I like his chili too. I like the idea of the spicy sausage. Sounds like chorizo. I'll have to try that.

So he sued FFR over producing a body that looked like "his," which in fact was an AC body....

Wow.

Do you think he realizes just how many people at this point think he's a scumbag?

Oh wowsers, another food topic. I am not overly enthusiastic about sausage in chili, to me it's more of a crumbled browned hamburger meat thing. I also prefer my chili to be beanless. Yeah, I know: sacriliege!

It's like they say "never meet you hero's"

Well, wish I has skipped this thread. I feel cheated