Yesterday, Morale Patch Armory announced they had received a trademark for the term “Morale Patch” and immediately set about having morale patch collector groups shut down on social media. Obviously, the term existed long before these guys came along. I’m all for respecting IP, but if you didn’t create it, you shouldn’t claim it.
Consequently, some folks have banded together to appeal the trademark issue to the USPTO. Naturally, this will take lawyers, and lawyers take cash. They’ve started a gofundme page and raised over $8000 in the first hour. Consider, throwing a few bucks in, in order to stand up to this outrageous act, designed to curtail innovation and trade.
www.gofundme.com/morale-patch-trademark-defense
Tags: Morale Patch Armory
Donated.
The term “morale patch” has been around for years, if not decades. I know aircrew have had it in common usage for as long as I can remember. For crap’s sake my wife has dozens of the damn things all over the house from all her years as a zipper suited sun god.
In the immortal words of the Tactical Tailor SHOT Show morale patch: “Don’t be cunty.”
What a weird way for that guy to kill his business. I’d say just sell your assets and declare bankruptcy, but this dude found a novel way to make the whole world hate him.
This guy is going to learn about the Streisand Effect. Hard.
They shut my morale patch page down. I was the only page that was shut down. we are currently rebuilding the page please join thanks !!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/269883663443906/
Karma Mr. Carbone?
Nope
How rude.
I have collected morale patches for a few years and am in some facebook groups for collectors. This evening I noticed them disappearing one by one. Apparently the guy who owns Morale Patch Armory, (a company that rips off other companies designs) trademarked “morale patch” and began enforcing it to wipe out anything with the phrase attached to it. This included shutting down patch collector/trader sites.
Within minutes the community rebelled, doxed the crap out of the owner and started a legal fund. Less than 20 min in, $2000 has been raised to sue the crap out of him. 2 companies have created patches making fun of the situation and are donating profits to the fund. It’s insane what like minded people can do when they put their minds together.
$2,000 should be enough to file a cancellation petition. Maybe Julio Medina will be foolish enough to fight the cancellation, but I doubt that any competent trademark counsel would bother.
They’re at almost $13K now
How to win a battle that you never needed to fight… and subsequently lose a war you can’t win.
These idiots just lost their constituency, good riddance shit birds!
WGW is offering a discount if you forward them the confirmation email of your Donation.
Just sayin’.
Whoever decided that it would be a good deal to trademark “Morale Patch” may have wanted to do some more research into the matter. Their USPTO filing shows a “First Use Anywhere Date” of January 2016. Someone will be filing for Chapter 7 here soon!
By the way, whoever runs their IG page can’t even type USPTO correctly, yet they somehow managed to file paperwork with the organization. What a joke!
Yeah, that’s a lie.
Lol, shits gonna sink faster than civil rights charity run by Jane Fonda and Lon Horiuchi
Do these retards not realize who they just pissed off? The community is full of the kind of individuals who are not going to take this shit. The morale patch has been around since the early 1900’s. I don’t see how the hell the trademark would ever hold up in court.
I was thinking the same thing. This community is not the type to take anything laying down, let alone one of its own supposed members trying to screw over other members of the community. There’s just no way this ends well for MPA and there are bigger, more important battles the industry and community need to be working together on. It’s a stupid and unnecessary distraction.
When did Dick Swan get into the patch game?
What a dick. We just went through this with the asshat that Trademarked TCCC and tried to close everyone down. We, of course, won but it cost thousands in lawyer fees. This will go the same way. Why enrich the scheisters?
Surprising they managed to do this. The USPTO is supposed to reject applications to trademark words or phrases in common usage, when the trademark is actually referring to that common usage. You can trademark the word Apple when it’s a computer, but you can’t trademark it when it’s actually apples, as in the fruit.
I remember when Despair.com trademarked the frown emoticon… 🙁
They then posted a notice that anyone using that emoticon in email or other formats purchase a license. Except… it was a JOKE because they knew it was STUPID and would get a LAUGH.
But these guys… talk about the Good Idea Fairy having an abortion…
While MPA must be pretty dumb, is the USPTO retarded?
WHUT? I just got done having this guy order our patches instead of knock-offs……and then they decide this is the next good idea?
He sounds like a great guy.
Monkey- did you cancel his order? just curious
Just checking, those are your patches? I bought patches from you YEARS ago and saw all the designs on his website. Does he just buy from you and resell or is he actively ripping off your designs and passing them off as his own?
Maybe it’s time for a copyright infringement lawsuit against him.
I suppose it is a lil complicated where it appeared he was buying from some airsoft type factories that copy some of our designs by default, I gave em the benefit of the doubt where it isn’t uncommon for stores to buy from those type places assuming they can resell without issue, but the factory kinda dicks them over by copying stuff; then I gotta come along with the hammer and look like the bad guy by enforcing the fact they aren’t free use designs.
In theory we were making progress by MPA semi recently buying the original designs from us instead of copies elsewhere, but things are now sounding super shifty.
Donated…screw those guys…
Morale patches are a cancer anyway. If this trademark thing, however immoral it is, can slow down its growth, I’m all for it.
Care to elaborate?
Yeah, let’s shut the whole thing down! 🙂
*RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE*
LOL tell us how you feel, Sergeant Major!
Someone please revoke gramp’s “interwebs” access and put him back on the front porch so he can yell at the neighbor kids…
I hope Jack is joking about the Morale Patch being a cancer.
I’m not surprised, and I bet it stands. An outdoors forum website did a similar thing with the word, “bushcraft” a few years ago, and that has stood.
The bushcraft thing hasn’t gone to court. I think the idiot that trademarked it was so thoroughly beaten down in that community he pretty much said he wouldn’t try to enforce it.
If that’s true than something major has changed in that hobby since I left it. The word “bushcraft” was trademarked by the website BushcraftUSA which was the largest site of its type in the US. And I know they used their legal control of the word at least once to force a small revival forum to remove the word from their title.
My understanding was the trade mark was for that very purpose. It had the unforeseen result of the douche bag in question being beat down constantly to the point of him backing down from his trade mark.
I followed it for about a year and my understanding is it never went to court. Had there been a court case I’m sure it would’ve been mentioned repeatedly
Someone at the USTPO had to be asleep at the wheel (wouldn’t be the first time and not the last).
I’ve dealt with trademarks for years and one of the cardinal rules has been you cannot trademark a “generic term” for a certain class of goods. It’s also not a “first use” situation. This patent is in direct contravention of 35 U.S. Code § 102.
They’ve just taken a term that has demonstrably been in continuous common use over years for a particular class of goods, and is furthermore not a “first use” situation, and permitted a patent.
*BLINK*
By the way, they had to know this when they filed. You know, given they are a “veteran owned business”.
The trademark part is right, but be careful of mixing patent concepts into it. A patent != trademark. A patent is a limited duration monopoly that grants you the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing an invention, as defined in the claims of the patent. 35 USC 102 refers to novelty, aka neva been dun befo’.
First use refers to that particular applicant’s first use of the mark in interstate commerce. It is possible for someone to have used the mark before, but after that person abandoned it, I’m free to start using it to refer to my goods/services.
I’m sure this veteran in question was just as big a cheesedick when he was in. Embarrassing really–he should have joined the peace corps.
USAF I am told.
Can someone file a trademark in these guys names, to reserve the term “Complete Dipshit Asshats” for their sole use?
It’s likely not been in widespread use before, but is accurately descriptive of them.
This trademark registration isn’t worth the paper that the registration certificate it’s printed on. Although the opposition period has passed, cancellation on the grounds of genericness, descriptiveness, or even fraud on the trademark office (if it can be proven) is always possible. Any one of the morale patch makers currently on the market should be able to file a petition to cancel.
But if I was a morale patch seller, I’m not sure I’d be all that worried about it. If hit with a cease & desist from Julio Medina, it won’t cost me any more than a grand or so for an attorney to respond back that the mark is generic, or at best merely descriptive. If he’s foolish enough to file suit, he’d get destroyed at the pleadings stage.
Remember, boys and girls, an IP registration (whether patents, trademarks, or copyrights) is worth only as much as what you’re willing to spend to enforce it. Morale Patch Armory hardly seems like the kind of company that would have the bankroll to fund a protracted trademark infringement fight.
the owner of MPC couldn’t cut it in the chair force so I’m not surprised he decided to come up with this retarded shit
Let’s trademark Cammo, Plate Carrier and Dump Pouch.
Donated. I read this last night in my shooting group. Dude is being douchery as hell, and probably gonna lose his business. #StupidKillsGreed
Somebody must have been asleep on the job a the Trademark office! They usually never let somebody trademark a common phrase, used widely and well established in common English usage, you now, like “Morale Patch.”
How the shit does the USPTO have time to browse 10 pages of urban dictionary to deny an all-asian rock band “The Slants” and miss 40,000 pages of horrible morale patch ideas?
NPR trigger warning for snowflakes: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/10/20/236235813/asian-american-band-fights-to-trademark-name-the-slants
Donated. How on earth did this ever get approved?
Let’s be solution driven and start calling them M Patches instead.
Asshat 0
Us 1
“Spirit Patches”
Eat a Dick.
‘Trademark’ Morale patches(term or otherwise)? Think the Australian street retort is well indicated on this one – GET FUCT!!!
What was the name of this company so I can be sure I never buy from them? Also so I can spread their name as cunts to not buy from? I mean seriously how stupid could you be?
in the grand scale of things, no doubt this is very small potatoes for the USPTO (think Apple vs Samsung). Still though, I’m guessing whomever approved this is quite possibly going to get a major ass-chewing when the higher-ups see and feel the massive backlash that’s coming. They no doubt thought this was another approve, file, and forget type TM.
Great business plan based on pissed of people on social media.
Step 1: Piss people off with something neutral yet sensitive.
Step 2: Start raising funds to legally counter the (your own) initiative (knowing that such a lawyer will cost a fraction of your official fundraising goal).
Step 3: Collect the money. Enjoy the traffic on your FB page and website, knowing that everyone now knows who you are, but will forget from where, in some time.
This is not a serious post.
It really is a dick move.
Looks like their website is down.