busybee fluffy rambles

A few days ago I suddenly had a bunch of trademark enforcement firms informing me about a new trademark applied for by a “North Carolina LLC” that they felt would infringe upon my trademark if I had it, and did I want to move forward on reopening my application? And I was like, nah.

But then one of the firms called me and gave me an incredibly high-pressure spiel about how if I didn’t move forward on this, this LLC would be able to take away my band name and sue me over the use of it. Which sounded fake, and I talked about the common-law status, but the paralegal kept on turning up more and more pressure and convinced me (through threat of lawsuits) to use his firm to reopen my application, and after about an hour of a very confusing conversation I finally relented and said that okay, I’ll think about it, and he sent me an invoice for the services, and said I had half an hour to decide to pay it or else I’d definitely lose my band name because of some supposed filing deadline with the USPTO. And he assured me that if I didn’t want to follow through on it I could get my money back.

He also insisted that he could not tell me, “on a secure, recorded line,” who was supposedly trying to register the trademark.

Scared and in a panic, I paid it.

Then I did more research and got more reasons to think that no, I shouldn’t have paid it.

For example, the USPTO has an article on recognizing common scams, which this definitely sets off alarm bells on, and when I tried pushing back on that and mentioned the issues with scams like these, he said, “I assure you I am not a scammer,” but offered no proof or evidence of this.

I decided that I’d dispute the charges on my credit card (which are also somewhat sketchy based on the business name on the payment processor) if this couldn’t get sorted out. And I immediately told him I did not want the filing to take place, and sent multiple texts and emails to this effect. He assured me throughout Friday that he would be in touch. He never got in touch.

This morning, the high-pressure dude called me on the phone again and said that he had me recorded as agreeing to move forward with the services and that if I were to dispute the charges this would become a big legal mess for me. I also reiterated stuff about common-law trademark things, and he started to give me a spiel about how I’m “not above the law” and made the ridiculous claim that using the band name without a registered trademark is akin to squatting on property, or not paying my rent. Which is, of course, utter horseshit. He also claimed that it was too late for a refund or cancelation because the paperwork had already been submitted.

He’s definitely broken the law at the very least; he never got consent to record me, when we’re both in two-party consent states, and everything about this whole process has been based on intimidation and deception.

I’m super frustrated right now and the phonecalls with him today especially have left me feeling drained, depressed, and stupid. And I wonder if maybe I’m totally wrong about the common law trademark stuff.

From other context I had determined that the competing registration was probably from a baseball team that recently changed their name to “The Burlington Sock Puppets” which wouldn’t matter at all if they got such a trademark, but this dude insists that they aren’t the thing and that the trademark application he saw (which of course he “cannot disclose” for some reason) would directly impact my band.

He’s also presenting himself as a legal expert but also insisting that he’s not an attorney, and keeps offering to give me contact information for his firm’s attorney but that it would “cost me” to have a conversation and also never gives me the fucking contact information anyway.

I still think that this is fucking bullshit and even if there is another band registering the name there is clear legal precedent that allows me to continue using the name even if I don’t have exclusive rights to it. And I mean, there’s been other bands which have come and gone with names like that, and I don’t give a shit that they use the name too, it’s Internet slang and it sucks to be them to not have done the due diligence before choosing their band name and also I don’t want to have to actively enforce the band name through legal action but not enforcing a trademark means losing it anyway

and I tried explaining all this to the fucking asshole on the phone but he kept on distorting my words and threatening legal implications for me, and also legal implications if I file a dispute with my credit card company

He’s given me a USPTO filing serial number which will supposedly go live within 24 hours and I can at least see if he’s doing what he’s claiming to do for me

but I super don’t need this fucking shit right now