{"id":19,"date":"2014-02-20T10:14:03","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T15:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=19"},"modified":"2014-02-22T13:52:35","modified_gmt":"2014-02-22T18:52:35","slug":"dan-mccall-gives-the-government-a-humor-lesson-that-all-trademark-owners-should-keep-in-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"Dan McCall Gives the Government a Humor Lesson that All Trademark Owners Should Keep in Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2011 Dan McCall’s destributors received cease-and-desist letters\u00a0from the NSA and DHS over\u00a0T-shirts and mugs criticizing the two\u00a0agencies by spoofing their seals, which are protected by special, nontrademark statutes. In October 2013 McCall filed a declaratory judgment action (PWG-13-3203 in the District of Maryland) to stop this interference with his free speach.\u00a0 The parties appear to have reached a settlement, with the NSA conceding that\u00a0the merchandise\u00a0was \u201cintended as parody\u201d and shouldn’t have warranted a letter, and\u00a0the DHS agreeing that\u00a0its cease-and-desist request was \u201coverbroad\u201d because McCall was merely providing \u201ccommentary\u201d about the agency.\u00a0 The agencies are required to provide a letter to McCall and his distributor, confirming their interpretation that 50 U.S.C. 3613(a) does not prohibit parody or commentary:<\/p>\n

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The DHS’ letter provided a similar qualification of 18 U.S.C. 506, and even promised to establish internal guidelines about sending cease and desist letters in the future:<\/p>\n

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COMMENT:<\/strong> While trademark owners may not like parodies, the proper borders or which are sometimes hard to define, increasingly there is a price for overreaching.\u00a0 There are other, better ways to get results than dashing off an overbroad and blustery cease and desist letter that may backfire.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 2011 Dan McCall’s destributors received cease-and-desist letters\u00a0from the NSA and DHS over\u00a0T-shirts and mugs criticizing the two\u00a0agencies by spoofing their seals, which are protected by special, nontrademark statutes. In October 2013 McCall filed a declaratory judgment action (PWG-13-3203 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trademarks.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}