Just curious – a question for the legal eagles on the board.
The bar at our community clubhouse books small performers on some Saturdays. One of their most frequent performers is a one-man-band who performs under the name Harley David’son. His rationale is simple: his legal first name is Harley and his father’s legal name is David. Hence, Harley David’son. OK, not grammatically correct but you get the idea.
When we saw him last, he told us that he actually received a document from a local Harley-Davidson store informing him that he needs to stop using the name immediately as it is a trademark of Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Inc. If he doesn’t, the dealership will escalate the situation to HD corporate. Do you think (as Vincent Gambini, J.D., Esq. famously asked) there is any case the dealership or Harley-Davidson’s case would hold water?
Well, your basic old people bar that closes at 8:00 pm. It used to be the golf course cafe until they realized that losing money because you don’t know how to run a cafe isn’t good for the golf course. It isn’t a tiki bar but it probably would qualify as a dive.
"It was late in the afternoon when I walked into the Sunland Village East golf course clubhouse. The kind of afternoon where the golfers look tired, the carts look guilty, and the ice machine sounds like it’s filing a complaint.*
The bar is Fat Willy’s, just off Buttercup Ave — with Sossaman and Baseline looming nearby like two streets that have seen too much. A few regulars were already posted up, staring into their drinks the way a man stares at a bill he doesn’t remember running up.
The bartender moved with the confidence of someone who’s poured more cocktails than he’s answered questions. I ordered something cold, legal, and unlikely to require a sworn statement.
If you’re asking whether the bar’s open — it is. And it’s serving drinks strong enough to make even a tee-time dispute seem solvable.
I took my seat. The chair cooperated. That’s when I knew I was in the right place.
Do not practice in this area, but as I understand it trademarks are supposed to protect companies from consumer confusion. I doubt anyone would be confused by this.
My father was a lifelong SLC police officer, a career and lifestyle I could never quite understand, while my younger brother who followed in his footsteps understood him perfectly.
I have no recollection of the exact situation (probably on TV) , but recall watching the Frank Drebin character and afterward having both my father and brother discuss people they both knew on the job who they characterized as exactly that same person.
Sometimes, literature/art, are a perfect mirror of reality.
Edit to say: And after a young life around police, I have not problem with them now. They have their own society, but they are to a person (of those I ever met) working for the best interest of broader society, and nothing else.
I’m not an attorney, but I am on the internet so I feel I’m qualified to answer this question.
I have heard in the past, usually around other trademark lawsuits I’ve read about, that if you don’t defend your trademarks from this sort of thing you risk the possibility of losing that trademark. It may not be that Harley-Davidson really cares or thinks people may get confused by his use of the name, but it may cause problems in the future if someone could say, “Well you let them use a variation of your name, why can’t we?”
And I can even see an argument that someone might be confused that this musician is sponsored by HD or working for them or something.
This makes me think of a recent KUER interview with Mormon Stories podcaster, Dr. John Dehlin, who is currently being sued by the LDS Church, for among other things, his use of the trademarked term Mormon.
The lawsuit was initiated late last year or early this Year, but Dehlin’s been using that same name for his podcast continuously since its inception in 2005.
I’ve never heard the podcast, and don’t have dog in this fight, but it seemed to me if the LDS church had a problem with it, they probably should have sued him long ago.
I actually DO know something about this, and would agree with you that if they wanted to defend it they should have years ago.
As it turns out, and if you know John Dehlin you won’t be surprised, but he has seriously miscast what this lawsuit is. The claims of the lawsuit were recently released, the LDS church has repeatedly said that they don’t have a problem with him using the word Mormon and he can continue to do so. Their issue is that his other marks are confusingly similar (he was using their colors and the ‘rays’ that the church puts on everything) and they want him to make more clear it isn’t affiliated with the LDS church.
But he keeps saying it is about the word Mormon, and it actually isn’t and never has been. He’s also cast it as a David and Goliath sort of story, when they tried to get him to change the marks for a long time and he refused forcing them to sue. But him making these claims is good for business, and when you know John, he’ll do anything that is good for business.
And I will also make the disclaimer, I DO have a dog in the fight of sorts as a member, but I’ll also say that there are many things the LDS church does as a corporation I DON’T agree with, or their methodologies… this isn’t one of them. I’ll also add that I’ve been following John since he started, and I think he started out doing what he does as a bridge for people wherever they were in their faith journey… but he’s long since strayed from that.
He’s also part of my belief that we’ll excuse pretty much any abhorent behavior of the people we believe to be on our side. Put another way, it’s kind of hard for me to tell the difference between Tim Ballard and John Dehlin - yet they are/were heroes/villians to people on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
