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January 2018
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US Army Files Dumb Trademark Opposition Against The NHL's Las Vegas Golden Knights

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This post will come as no surprise to those of us super-interesting people that for some reason have made trademark law and news a key fulcrom point in our lives, but the United States Army has filed an opposition to the trademark application for the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Some background is in order should you not be one of the roughly twelve of us in America that are hockey fans.Starting around 2007, the United States Army went on something of a trademarking spree, filing for marks long in use, including some of the monikers for well known units and/or what I would call "show units", or units that chiefly serve to be seen at entertainment venues such as air and water shows. Included in these marks were the Army's "Black Knights" mascot for its military academy athletic teams and its Golden Knights paratrooping unit that performs at air and water shows all over the country. The army uses these trademarks to rake in millions of dollars in merchandise.The Las Vegas Golden Knights is an NHL expansion hockey team started by a graduate of West Point, Bill Foley, who wanted the team's garb and name to serve as an homage to his military roots. To that end, he had initially wanted to name the team "The Black Knights", but switched to "The Golden Knights" after the Army voiced its displeasure. The color scheme for the team is a clear call back to the paratrooping team that shares the name.It has been these clear admissions of homage that the Army has pointed to as an indication that this is obvious trademark infringement.

The Army also highlights public comments made by Golden Knights officials where they admit to trying to connect to the Army. For instance, last July, Golden Knights general manager George McPhee revealed to The Washington Post’s Aaron Torres that the Golden Knights’ color scheme of black, gold, yellow and white was intentionally selected for its similarity to a color scheme used by the Army at West Point. “Bill Foley is a West Point guy,” McPhee noted. “You know his history at West Point. You know about the classmates he had that he lost serving this country. So, those colors mean a lot to us, and will mean a lot to our players. And we’re really proud of the logo. It’s clean, it’s symmetrical, it’s kind of bold and again it stands for something.”
Except that none of that makes any of this trademark infringement. For trademark infringement to have occurred, there needs to be either real or a reasonable likelihood of confusion in the market. While the US Army does sponsor professional sports leagues, and while its paratrooping Golden Knights do put on a show, none of that puts them in the same commercial marketplace as a professional hockey team. And I will say, as an aside, the concept that the United States Army, defenders of the free world, with all of its storied history and tradition, has been reduced to an intellectual property fight over a respectful homage in the professional sports commerce battleground is just sort of gross.For its part, while the Las Vegas Golden Knights have until late February to respond to the opposition, the team's public statement on the matter doesn't indicate that it will be surrendering to the Army any time soon.
“In the Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Army filed its opposition to the Vegas Golden Knights’ applications to register the trademark VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS used in connection with the sport of hockey. We strongly dispute the Army’s allegations that confusion is likely between the Army Golden Knights parachute team and the Vegas Golden Knights major-league hockey team. Indeed, the two entities have been coexisting without any issues for over a year (along with several other Golden Knights trademark owners) and we are not aware of a single complaint from anyone attending our games that they were expecting to see the parachute team and not a professional hockey game. That said, in light of the pending trademark opposition proceedings, we will have no further comment at this time and will address the Army’s opposition in the relevant legal forums.”
Unless the Army wishes to trivialize its reputation even further, hopefully this opposition will be the one and only pushback on the NHL team it will make.

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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Jan-2018
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Co-Head Of Virginia's FOIA Council Introduces Bill To Make State's Court System Even More Opaque

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As the result of a public records battle with a local newspaper over court records, two Virginia politicians have decided to address the issue with legislation. One hopes to further open court records to the public.

Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, filed House Bill 4, which would require the case management system maintained by the Office of the Executive Secretary to be open to the public. The bill was filed in November.
The other politician involved has, unsurprisingly, offered up a competing bill that would take public records laws in the opposite direction.
Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Stafford, has a different idea. He filed Senate Bill 727 this week, which would exempt all courts in Virginia from the Freedom of Information Act.
This would add to the large pile of exemptions the state government already benefits from. To the detriment of residents, state agencies and employees have nearly 175 FOIA exemptions available to them. The addition of court docket data would further separate the Virginian government from transparency and accountability.There's nothing surprising about a politician angling for more opacity. What is surprising is Sen. Stuart's stance, which is diametrically opposed to his position.
Open-government advocates said they were stunned that Stuart would file such a bill without consulting the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council — of which he is vice chair.“It appears that he’s suggesting that an entire branch of government — one of the three branches of government — be removed from the Freedom of Information Act,” said Betsy Edwards, executive director of the Virginia Press Association.
Of course, it could be very cynically argued that Stuart is doing exactly what the state wants, while holding an insider position on a council meant to provide some form of public advocacy for greater transparency. Stuart feels the court system should be able to craft its own exemptions and pick and choose what it wants to release to the unwashed voting bloc. This would just be more of the same from vice chair of the FOIA Advisory Council.
In 2016, he sponsored a bill that would have exempted disclosure of salaries of many state employees and forbid release of government employee databases with names of the employees if their salaries were also listed. A House subcommittee on FOIA killed it.
Stuart's stated identity theft as the reason for exempting this information from public release -- something that no one has ever alleged has occurred because of official releases of salary information. (Personally-identifiable information is redacted in Virigina's release of salary data.) He also threw a little shade towards the First Amendment, claiming newspapers would be unhappy if the bill passed because they profit off the publication of public records.
Just to be very honest with everybody in here, the newspapers are not going to like it if you vote for this bill. I don't want you to be disillusioned. It bothers me a little bit because what the newspapers do is they get this big database from the state and then they republish this online. And it helps them gain subscribers to their newspaper to search that information. And so, they are very unhappy with me and I suspect if you vote for this bill they will be very unhappy with you. And I want to be very honest about that. But I think we have an obligation to protect our state employees from suffering from identity theft.
Then again, Sen. Stuart isn't so much the vice chair of the FOIA Advisory Council as he is an absentee landlord.
Although Stuart is the vice chairman, he rarely attends meetings. He missed nine of 10 meetings of the council in the past two years.
It appears Sen. Stuart likes the power that comes with political office, but none of the obligations to the public that come with it. Stuart blamed scheduling conflicts for being unable to attend meetings that occur roughly every sixty days. He's adding zero value to the Council and spends more of his time in the legislature actively thwarting it. It may be tough to remove Stuart from office, but there's certainly no reason the FOIA Advisory Council needs to continue posting his name to its masthead and inviting him to meetings he just not going to attend.

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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Jan-2018
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