Will Hamas-linked CAIR sue the Muslims who are committing acts of murder and mayhem on a regular basis in the name of jihad? I thought not.
Pamela Geller has the latest:
CAIR Chicago tried to stop our counter campaign
to their
bizarre jihad propaganda. They tried to silence the freedom of speech.
Sharia enforcement. A “cease and desist” letter from Hamas-CAIR’s Ahmed
Rehab (Mr. Jihad) claimed ownership of “my jihad.” Ahmed Rehab’s comical
legal contention:
Download Cease and Desist 011513(1)Litigation jihad — that’s Ahmed’s jihad, what’s yours?
They love using American law to crush
American freedoms. In this case of parody (as in most things),
Hamas-CAIR Chicago is overreaching and out of control, but there is
always some hungry lawyer eager to line his pockets with myjihad dollars
(and AFDI’s).Hamas-CAIR has been encouraging people to use the hashtag #myjihad —
did they really think they could say who, what, where and when? Typical
Islamic supremacism.Here is our legal team’s response and counter legal action. Substantiation here:
Download RetrieveDear Mr. Persoon:
I
am in receipt of your letter (attached) to my client claiming trademark
rights in the alleged mark “MYJIHAD” and variations thereof. I write
to you today in reference to your client’s two trademark application
files, nos. 85807023 and 85807003.Specifically,
I wish to point out to you that these applications contain materially
false representations. First, as you know, neither mark was used in
commerce as of September 26, 2012, as represented in the applications.
The use of #myjihad in September 2012 relates to the use of the phrase
in a public twitter campaign to popularize and to promote the use of
#myjihad by the public. See, e.g., http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120927/news/709279634/. Such use is the opposite of a proprietary claim in a trademark.And, as the Daily Herald
story linked above indicates, there is a more fundamental
misrepresentation in the trademark applications. The phrase MYJIHAD is
merely the combination into a compound word of two generic terms “my”
and “jihad.” As such, the term MYJIHAD is not properly subject to
trademark protection. See, e.g., In re Gould Paper Corp.,
834 F.2d 1017, 5 USPQ2d 1110, 1111-1112 (Fed. Cir. 1987) (holding that
SCREENWIPE was generic as applied to premoistened antistatic cloths for
cleaning computer and television screens). Indeed, the use of the
phrase “my jihad” to describe a jihad personal to the speaker (whether
the referenced “jihad” is of the violent variety or of the non-violent
struggle variety) is a common expression and has been used historically
long before your client’s use. See, e.g., the Lexis-Nexis search of the term attached (beginning from item no. 76 et seq.).Moreover,
even if the term is not determined to be generic, it is at best a
descriptive mark that cannot be trademarked without secondary meaning.Finally, you are no doubt aware that my client acquired the website URL myjihad.us before your client even incorporated.
As
such, please be aware that if your client does not withdraw these
applications, we will file the appropriate letters of protest and follow
up with the necessary administrative and legal steps to resist this
blatantly inappropriate claim to trademark rights in the proposed marks.
David Yerushalmi*
American Freedom Law Centerâ„