Express Homebuyers Wins Its Bid To Cancel Competitors 'We Buy Houses' Trademark

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We've often made the point in the past that much of the trademark legal strife and bullying that occurs throughout the country ought to be squarely blamed on a USPTO that can't be bothered to put much thought into the trademarks it approves. All too often, the Trademark Office acts as a mindless rubber stamping facility, pushing through the application paperwork without thinking about the broader consequences of its approvals, nor the legal minutia involved into what makes a term a valid trademark. That bureaucratic lethargy is precisely how you get trademark bullies wielding trademarks that should never have been granted. And, because trademark bullying generally works, it's rare that anyone outside the USPTO is actually forced to clean up this mess it created.But, on rare occasions, sanity puts a win up on the board. Such is the case with Express Homebuyers USA of Virginia, which defeated WBH Marketing Inc.'s trademark suit in which the latter claimed infringement based on its registered trademark for the phrase "We Buy Houses."

In a thorough and well-reasoned decision, Judge T.S. Ellis, III, of the Eastern District of Virginia, concluded that the federal trademarks “We Buy Houses” and “Webuyhouses.com” are generic, are not protected under trademark law, and therefore should be canceled. The court found that the phrase “we buy houses” has been used in the real estate industry since as early as 1898 in millions of newspapers and advertisements. That evidence, coupled with other evidence and the testimony of Express Homebuyer’s CEO Brad Chandler, was “overwhelming and unrefuted.”Finding that the marks are generic and should be canceled was “logical” according to Judge Ellis because “allowing one member [of the real estate industry] to have exclusive use of the phrase ‘we buy houses’ would be the equivalent of allowing a professional football team to trademark ‘we play football’ or a fast-food chain to trademark ‘we sell burgers,’” which are phrases that should be available for all to use.

The ruling is significant because, if Mr. Brandt’s company prevailed, thousands of real estate investors across the country could have been prohibited from using the vitally important phrase “we buy houses” in their marketing and advertising materials.Having concluded that the trademarks “We Buy Houses” and “Webuyhouses.com” were generic and should be canceled, Judge Ellis also dismissed WBH Marketing’s claim that Express Homebuyers infringed on the trademarks. Judge Ellis thus threw out WBH’s multimillion dollar damages claim against Express Homebuyers.

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As Press Freedom Dies In Turkey, Twitter Is There To Help Dig Its Grave

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Turkish president Recep Erdogan figures the best critic is a silenced critic. Determined to "earn" the respect of people worldwide, Erdogan and his government have engaged in unprecedented censorship. This goes far beyond the punishment of its own citizens. Erdogan has tried to secure charges and prosecutions from other governments against their own citizens for having the temerity to not take him as seriously as he takes himself.

Erdogan takes down newspapers and platforms with equal aplomb. He does this to stop things like the following from circulating:

It doesn't work, of course. Nothing gets censored worldwide and whatever censorship hits home can be circumvented. But of all the internet targets, Twitter is Erdogan's absolute favorite. The Committee to Protect Journalists has done the math. Its excellent article on Erdogan's censorship activities makes it clear that all other countries are merely pretenders to the throne when it comes to talking Twitter into doing their dirty work.

Over 1.5 million tweets have been withheld in Turkey by Twitter, thanks to Turkish government demands. Frequently targeted by removal requests are citizens who would normally be afforded extra speech protections in countries not run by a thin-skinned thug. And an American company playing ball with an authoritarian doesn't leave much room for recourse.

When CPJ reviewed a Buzzfeed News database of over 1,700 accounts withheld in one or more countries, along with court orders uploaded by tech companies to Harvard University's Lumen database, tweets, Twitter lists, and news reports, it was able to identify at least 59 Twitter accounts that belong to journalists and media outlets censored using the CWC tool in Turkey. As of late July, those 59 accounts had a combined following of over six million, in a country of about 11 million Twitter users.

Journalists whose accounts have been censored by CWC [country withheld content]requests told CPJ that Twitter is inconsistent with its compliance with such requests and complained about the lack of remediation options.

Journalists tweeting about the decline of press freedoms in Turkey are seeing their tweets removed by a compliant Twitter. And this is all Twitter has to say about its compliance in the decline of press freedoms in Turkey:

Colin Crowell, Twitter's head of global public policy, told CPJ, "If [we] don't use CWC, then the alternative is to remove [the content] globally [then] nobody can see it."

But that simply isn't true. Twitter has to know there's a third option: no removal at all. Even if the request is lawful in Turkey, Turkey's speech laws are terrible. Twitter doesn't have to make things worse by letting the Turkish government steamroll critics via removal requests. Sure, that means it might lose access to an entire country, but it shouldn't be so willing to be an extension of an abusive government.

It's not just a Twitter problem. Google's decision to help build the Chinese government a censored search engine is unacceptable, no matter how many more millions of users Google might reach.

Turkey's government may drive the content removal business on Twitter, but there's censorship everywhere from authoritarian regimes being aided by US companies that should act as a bulwark against tyranny. At the very least, there should be constant pushback against demands like these, rather than acquiescence under the disingenuous theory that blocking content worldwide is the only alternative.

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