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I think the bigger issues is that people like the legal system is inherently expensive, when often it isn’t. Although it frequently time consuming. > It would

I think the bigger issues is that people like the legal system is inherently expensive, when often it isn’t. Although it frequently time consuming. > It would have been too expensive, he guesses. This attitude really bothers me. Why didn’t he find out how much it cost? It probably costs nothing to writing your own opposition and send it back to the trademark office. You’re only trying to convince an administrator, not a judge, and worst that can happen is you fail. But all you’ve lost is some time. Most government processes are designed so it’s possible for a lay person to figure it out. The real trick lawyers have managed, is convincing us all that you can’t engage with government or the justice system without an overpaid lawyer.

clippablematt 5y ago
Time consuming == expensive. If you engage with the case and the legal system you aren’t at work, you aren’t developing your product/company, you aren’t spending time with your family. You spend you time doing something other than the thing you want to be doing, you sacrifice all the possible opportunities you could have had doing other things. If you pay a lawyer or if you do it yourself it is expensive. Even if you only spend half an hour writing an email, that’s time you’ve lost, and that time is more valuable to you on a small scale than the cost for the legal department of a massive company that can have someone writing emails all day and eating up all your time.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Conflict is an inherent part of society. Either you engage with it, and use the tools available to you to defend the things you care about. Or you shut the fuck up. Most countries legal systems have very strong skews towards individuals, to make it easy(ish) for individuals to take on much larger entities. Most of the time these skews are so extreme that merely demonstrating that you understand how to send a correctly written letter is enough for most companies to back off. Large corporates prey entirely on the fact that people grossly underestimate how many rights they have, and make zero effort to enforce them. If spending 30mins to write an email is too much effort. Then clearly the issue isn’t significant to you. In which shut up and go away. If you can’t be bothered to write a 30 min email, then why the hell should anyone else give a shit?
  - Jare 5y ago
    > Most countries legal systems have very strong skews towards individuals I'd rather have a society where millions of people could fuck a company but in practice they don't, than one where a company can fuck millions of people and in practice it does.
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      > I'd rather have a society where millions of people could fuck a company but in practice they don't In many parts of the world we already do. People just don’t realise it. Companies only get away with fucking people because most people never make any attempt to report bad behaviour or know their rights. Consumer apathy and ignorance is the number one thing that enables corporate misbehaviour.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Conflict itself is an inherent part of society, but the level of its impact is not. In fact, I would say that making the mediation of conflict more efficient is an integral part of progress. For example, we no longer walk around continually prepared to get into physical fights (either by training ourselves or hiring bodyguards to do it for us), but have made it so the average person does not have to deal with this conflict (for the most part). The US legal system is basically at the stage where you either hire bodyguards (attorneys), bulk yourself up (extensive legal study), or allow yourself to be pushed around by others. Interacting with the current legal system is nowhere as easy as you're making it out to be. As a software engineer, yes one can straightforwardly read the law, develop legal intuition, and do a decent job representing yourself. I personally have done my own deeds, administrative court filings, and contract reviews. But I recognize that doing so took many days that I could have spent doing something else. It's nice to be able understand a different system at that level, do my own work, and really know what I'm dealing with - but it's anything but free. And I don't know that I'd ever be comfortable representing myself in a trademark dispute against professional adversaries that know the system intimately. FWIW online surveillance is basically at the same stage of development. I've got a pretty good setup of VMs, custom router, VPNs, browser extensions, etc that does a good job keeping me protected. But I recognize that this takes resources to setup and maintain, and it would be ridiculous for me to tell the average person that surveillance isn't a problem because they can "just" do what I've done.
kxrm 5y ago
It doesn't cost anything to file a response to an opposition. Just deny all their assertions. I've been through the process for my own Trademark and was willing to fight a large gaming company up until discovery without a lawyer. That said, you need to do your homework if you try this and it is a bit time consuming, but it was just a few hours of work for me to research and talk to a couple of trademark lawyers (for free) to get a very basic assessment of what was happening and how common opposition filing is. Responded on my own and the Trademark office was surprised that I had no lawyer. BTW, filing an opposition is easy and costs almost nothing to do, so why wouldn't an existing trademark holder do it?
- programmarchy 5y ago
  Did you win your case? I’m going through something similar and was about to give up hope based on advice from my lawyer, because he convinced me the company I’m up against would continue to appeal, easily justifying the legal expense to shareholders about “protecting the brand”. I’m willing to put in some time and effort to win, so maybe I should take my shot.
  - kxrm 5y ago
    After I filed my response, we did two more calls and finally settled. I just had to change 3 words in the description which I initially offered prior to their opposition. You should definitely not stop at a simple opposition. Most oppositions never go to a full blown trial. The trademark office really pushes for the parties to settle their claims. I had a strong case though so I was certain I could defend my trademark application. The lawyers will tell you the best case and worst case of any action, so I would definitely get other opinions then just relying on the word of one lawyer.

clippablematt 5y ago

Time consuming == expensive. If you engage with the case and the legal system you aren’t at work, you aren’t developing your product/company, you aren’t spending time with your family. You spend you time doing something other than the thing you want to be doing, you sacrifice all the possible opportunities you could have had doing other things. If you pay a lawyer or if you do it yourself it is expensive. Even if you only spend half an hour writing an email, that’s time you’ve lost, and that time is more valuable to you on a small scale than the cost for the legal department of a massive company that can have someone writing emails all day and eating up all your time.

avianlyric 5y ago
Conflict is an inherent part of society. Either you engage with it, and use the tools available to you to defend the things you care about. Or you shut the fuck up. Most countries legal systems have very strong skews towards individuals, to make it easy(ish) for individuals to take on much larger entities. Most of the time these skews are so extreme that merely demonstrating that you understand how to send a correctly written letter is enough for most companies to back off. Large corporates prey entirely on the fact that people grossly underestimate how many rights they have, and make zero effort to enforce them. If spending 30mins to write an email is too much effort. Then clearly the issue isn’t significant to you. In which shut up and go away. If you can’t be bothered to write a 30 min email, then why the hell should anyone else give a shit?
- Jare 5y ago
  > Most countries legal systems have very strong skews towards individuals I'd rather have a society where millions of people could fuck a company but in practice they don't, than one where a company can fuck millions of people and in practice it does.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    > I'd rather have a society where millions of people could fuck a company but in practice they don't In many parts of the world we already do. People just don’t realise it. Companies only get away with fucking people because most people never make any attempt to report bad behaviour or know their rights. Consumer apathy and ignorance is the number one thing that enables corporate misbehaviour.
- mindslight 5y ago
  Conflict itself is an inherent part of society, but the level of its impact is not. In fact, I would say that making the mediation of conflict more efficient is an integral part of progress. For example, we no longer walk around continually prepared to get into physical fights (either by training ourselves or hiring bodyguards to do it for us), but have made it so the average person does not have to deal with this conflict (for the most part). The US legal system is basically at the stage where you either hire bodyguards (attorneys), bulk yourself up (extensive legal study), or allow yourself to be pushed around by others. Interacting with the current legal system is nowhere as easy as you're making it out to be. As a software engineer, yes one can straightforwardly read the law, develop legal intuition, and do a decent job representing yourself. I personally have done my own deeds, administrative court filings, and contract reviews. But I recognize that doing so took many days that I could have spent doing something else. It's nice to be able understand a different system at that level, do my own work, and really know what I'm dealing with - but it's anything but free. And I don't know that I'd ever be comfortable representing myself in a trademark dispute against professional adversaries that know the system intimately. FWIW online surveillance is basically at the same stage of development. I've got a pretty good setup of VMs, custom router, VPNs, browser extensions, etc that does a good job keeping me protected. But I recognize that this takes resources to setup and maintain, and it would be ridiculous for me to tell the average person that surveillance isn't a problem because they can "just" do what I've done.

kxrm 5y ago

It doesn't cost anything to file a response to an opposition. Just deny all their assertions. I've been through the process for my own Trademark and was willing to fight a large gaming company up until discovery without a lawyer. That said, you need to do your homework if you try this and it is a bit time consuming, but it was just a few hours of work for me to research and talk to a couple of trademark lawyers (for free) to get a very basic assessment of what was happening and how common opposition filing is. Responded on my own and the Trademark office was surprised that I had no lawyer. BTW, filing an opposition is easy and costs almost nothing to do, so why wouldn't an existing trademark holder do it?

programmarchy 5y ago
Did you win your case? I’m going through something similar and was about to give up hope based on advice from my lawyer, because he convinced me the company I’m up against would continue to appeal, easily justifying the legal expense to shareholders about “protecting the brand”. I’m willing to put in some time and effort to win, so maybe I should take my shot.
- kxrm 5y ago
  After I filed my response, we did two more calls and finally settled. I just had to change 3 words in the description which I initially offered prior to their opposition. You should definitely not stop at a simple opposition. Most oppositions never go to a full blown trial. The trademark office really pushes for the parties to settle their claims. I had a strong case though so I was certain I could defend my trademark application. The lawyers will tell you the best case and worst case of any action, so I would definitely get other opinions then just relying on the word of one lawyer.