Specialized Goes Nuclear

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elapid

elapid

Mar 18, 2009
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DirtyWorks said:
For what? So they can waste 100,000 on lawyers? And I mean waste as in AS gets nothing.

The term is, or should be unenforceable. This is a perfect example of fundamentally broken intellectual property policy. Thanks to the exported U.S. WIPO. http://www.wipo.org
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Oh, I agree. I'd just like to see Specialized get a taste of their own medicine, just like the comedian and French Connection in the link provided by B_Ugli.
 
ExRower

ExRower

Mar 20, 2009
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86TDFWinner

86TDFWinner

Aug 11, 2012
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BroDeal said:
Screw Specialized. Cycling would be better off if both Trek and Specialized were blasted out of existence.

Back in the day, before I switched to Sidi, I had a pair of Specialized cycling shoes. One shoe's sole cracked. That was the last Suckalized product I bought.
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I had an old Allez back in the 80s, great bike. Not sure about anything new from them though.
 
T

twothirds

Sep 30, 2009
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I just sent off an e-mail to Harley Davidson concerning the use of the name Fat Boy when it pertains to a "bike". Can reasonable argue that some consumers might be confused about that one. Maybe a collaboration between the companies? We'll see if an even bigger fish decides to feed on Specialized.
 
Afrank

Afrank

Aug 16, 2011
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He he he, Cafe Roubaix gonna keep their name, and Specialized will probably take a hit in people buying from them. Just awesome! Remember what happened here the next time you want to bully a smaller company Specialized. :D
 
DirtyWorks

DirtyWorks

Feb 10, 2010
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Afrank said:
He he he, Cafe Roubaix gonna keep their name, and Specialized will probably take a hit in people buying from them. Just awesome! Remember what happened here the next time you want to bully a smaller company Specialized. :D
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That's not going to slow down Sinyard one bit. The C&D's are still being cranked out of Legal for all those other unique terms like "Tarmac" and "Allez." Canadians get the special privilege of "Roubaix" being owned by Specialized and very likely more Roubaix C&D's in Canada.

It's an awesome business plan. Your company just has to get big enough to afford an on-staff attorney to extort smaller companies. The attorney's productivity is measured in dollars extorted. Not kidding.

Same idea, different industry: http://www.clownshoesbeer.com/uncategorized/11334/

It happens *all* the time.
 
StyrbjornSterki

StyrbjornSterki

Jul 18, 2010
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Corporations have little leeway over when they will sue over trademark infringement. Knowingly ignoring even one seemingly innocuous infringement establishes a precedent that potentially weakens their position in any future, more consequential defenses of their intellectual property.

Beretta firearms sued Chevrolet for using their company name on one of its cars.

Porsche sued Crocs Europe for naming one of its shoes "Cayman."

Ford threatened to sue Ferrari because they announced they were naming their Formula One racing car "F150" (same as one of their pickup trucks) in honor of that's year's 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

Motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson takes it so seriously they arrange to have a "trademark cop" at every biker rally of note on the planet (Elefantentreffen, Thundersprint, Sturgis, etc) to browse the motorcycle paraphernalia vendor's wares and close down anyone selling un-authentic H-D branded merchandise.

And on it goes. These days, this is just the way business gets done. Specialized well and truly might be evil incarnate but I would not be inclined to come to that conclusion simply on account of this one incident.
 
Master50

Master50

Mar 10, 2009
1,295
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StyrbjornSterki said:
Corporations have little leeway over when they will sue over trademark infringement. Knowingly ignoring even one seemingly innocuous infringement establishes a precedent that potentially weakens their position in any future, more consequential defenses of their intellectual property.

Beretta firearms sued Chevrolet for using their company name on one of its cars.

Porsche sued Crocs Europe for naming one of its shoes "Cayman."

Ford threatened to sue Ferrari because they announced they were naming their Formula One racing car "F150" (same as one of their pickup trucks) in honor of that's year's 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

Motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson takes it so seriously they arrange to have a "trademark cop" at every biker rally of note on the planet (Elefantentreffen, Thundersprint, Sturgis, etc) to browse the motorcycle paraphernalia vendor's wares and close down anyone selling un-authentic H-D branded merchandise.

And on it goes. These days, this is just the way business gets done. Specialized well and truly might be evil incarnate but I would not be inclined to come to that conclusion simply on account of this one incident.
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Yes but demanding a token payment works too.
 
blutto

blutto

Jul 4, 2009
9,666
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StyrbjornSterki said:
Corporations have little leeway over when they will sue over trademark infringement. Knowingly ignoring even one seemingly innocuous infringement establishes a precedent that potentially weakens their position in any future, more consequential defenses of their intellectual property.

Beretta firearms sued Chevrolet for using their company name on one of its cars.

Porsche sued Crocs Europe for naming one of its shoes "Cayman."

Ford threatened to sue Ferrari because they announced they were naming their Formula One racing car "F150" (same as one of their pickup trucks) in honor of that's year's 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

Motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson takes it so seriously they arrange to have a "trademark cop" at every biker rally of note on the planet (Elefantentreffen, Thundersprint, Sturgis, etc) to browse the motorcycle paraphernalia vendor's wares and close down anyone selling un-authentic H-D branded merchandise.

And on it goes. These days, this is just the way business gets done. Specialized well and truly might be evil incarnate but I would not be inclined to come to that conclusion simply on account of this one incident.
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...a couple of things...first, yes a case can be made that protecting intellectual property is a most prudent action to pursue in many cases .....

...but...but...in this particular case there is a history of corporate bullying using legal means powered by a large budget....and... this is the big one, the party pushing this agenda had in point of fact no legal right to pursue the course of action we are discussing here ( see quote below )...

“We are in the process of notifying Specialized that they did not have the authority, as part of our license agreement, to stop Daniel Richter … from using the Roubaix name,” Cunnane wrote. “While ASI does have the authority to object to Mr. Richter’s use of the name and while we at ASI understand the importance of protecting our bicycle model names, we believe that Mr. Richter did not intend for consumers to confuse his brick-and-mortar establishment or his wheel line with our Roubaix road bike. And we believe consumers are capable of distinguishing his bike shop and wheel line from our established bikes.”

...so in this case the benefit of the doubt that you raised does not apply because their legal case has no legs to stand on...and in proceeding with this action Specialized have shown themselves to be small minded...and venal...and cheap...and in plain terms, stupid....

...so Specialized, by their own actions, and the actions of those who represent them, have in fact proved themselves to be the bullying scumbags that posters in this thread accuse them of being, and to embellish this rancid cake with a rotted cherry, are also unbelievably incompetent ...and unfortunately for them that speaks volumes about how they deal the world ( of which their customers are a part off...I mean, who would, after seeing this, actually use their hard earned cash to buy stuff from an outfit that operates like this...not me...but of course dear sir, your mileage may vary...)...

Cheers
 
86TDFWinner

86TDFWinner

Aug 11, 2012
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Here's Spech's latest "apology"(more like spin) on it(courtesy of FB) Sorry Mike, hard for me to believe you weren't the chief on this, backtracking is all this is.:rolleyes::

Specialized Bicycles · 390,628 like this
10 hours ago ·

I Screwed up, and I own it

I would like to apologize and let everyone know I realize I handled this situation wrong from the start and I’m very sorry for that. As many of you have probably already seen by now, I went up to Café Roubaix to meet with Dan in person to apologize and make good with him. Café Roubaix will continue on with its name. The video is up on Café Roubaix's Facebook page. Dan is the real deal, after meeting him I realize this and am embarrassed by how ridiculous this is. What happened was wrong. There are no excuses but I do feel like I owe it to you all to explain how we found ourselves in this situation, the lessons we've learned from it and, most importantly, how it will change the way we do things moving forward.

Over the past few years we’ve seen a massive spike in counterfeit products, and most of the riders have no idea these products are fake, which is extremely dangerous because the risk of failure on these untested products is extremely high. In one instance, the entire head tube and fork sheared off a counterfeit Tarmac, causing the rider who had no idea he was not on a genuine Specialized product to faceplant and destroy his shoulder. To give you an idea of how much this issue has blown up, 10 Specialized employees hunt fake products across 30 major ecommerce platforms, we've identified over 5,000 listings, worth $11,000,000 USD in counterfeit goods since January 1st of this year alone. This is about double what it was last year. Due to this we have recently gone after IP and trademark issues more aggressively in the interest of protecting the safety of riders and the livelihood of our dealers and their hard-working employees. See the attached picture to understand how dangerous fake goods are.

In the deal with Café Roubaix, the wheels were the red flag that got the attention of our outside attorney’s who were already sort of on red alert for anything that pops up, although Café Roubaix wasn’t in the same camp as the counterfeiters, they still got caught in the crossfire. There is so much activity with infringers that it’s overwhelming and I don’t see them all. The first I heard of it was Saturday morning and by Monday the thing went huge. But still, that was my fault, which is why I’m so embarrassed. I should have called Dan immediately.

I heard you and you can rest assured I took it to heart. I realize now that we went too far with this aggressive approach and as a result and in some cases we hurt the local bikes shops and small businesses we wanted to protect. As a result we’re going to take a much closer look at all pending and future intellectual property and trademark issues, making sure to only pursue those that present a clear and obvious danger. The letter on Epix Gear was issued before the Café Roubaix story broke and has since been pulled.

I handled this very poorly and I own full responsibility. Dan at Café Roubaix and I have become friends and he’s happy with the solution. I hope you too accept my sincere apology. Like you all, I’m passionate about cycling and want to do everything possible to grow the activity we all love.

Sincerely,

-Mike Sinyard
Founder
 
blutto

blutto

Jul 4, 2009
9,666
0
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86TDFWinner said:
Here's Spech's latest "apology"(more like spin) on it(courtesy of FB) Sorry Mike, hard for me to believe you weren't the chief on this, backtracking is all this is.:rolleyes::

Specialized Bicycles · 390,628 like this
10 hours ago ·

I Screwed up, and I own it

....yup ...just cynical spin....a variation of the " I did it for the children" meme ...

...first, there are any number of ways to protect trademarks, and one may be to define licencing agreements ( which could for the sake of legality and good will be done with a $1 agreement )...

...a second spin that has been heard is that it was a screw-up btwn inhouse counsel and an outside firm....now I don't know the specifics of this case but when Scumialized was screwing over a local dealer, the communication came directly from "Spinyard" ( and it was short and brutal and was a way over the top response to the situation, a nuclear response if you may....a kind of response one could easily associate with a serial bully...and which btw did not seem a deal big enough to warrant a response from a CEO ...unless of course that CEO has control issues...) ....

...and thirdly, this incident may have not been the result of any sort of reasonable and proper legal consideration/advice because frankly the case seems to have had no basis in legal fact....and actually exposed Scumialized to a counter-suit which they would have most likely lost...because there is another part of the copyright law, "which basically polices bad-faith lawsuits," threats made fraudulently or without proper basis ( which given the fact of actual ownership of the trademark seems to define Scumialized's bullying as )...

....and last, but certainly not least, is the history of bullying and stupid venial actions that seem to indicate that this is, and has been, an integral part of the Scumialized business plan ( and btw since that business plan also at some level involves selling product to customers it would be prudent for all potential customers reading this to think long and hard about ever dealing with Specialized....and yes their products are in many cases world class, but they are not the only purveyors of world class products....)

Cheers
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BroDeal

BroDeal

Mar 18, 2009
14,644
81
22,580
Trying to blame counterfeiting is weak. It is a diversion to excuse the same behavior he has exhibited many times before. Coming from Sinyard it is especially galling because he got his start making MTB frames by taking a Tom Ritchey frame to Japan and ordering 500 copies. What is the difference between that and some enterprising Chinese doing the same thing with his products?
 
86TDFWinner

86TDFWinner

Aug 11, 2012
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24
11,530
BroDeal said:
Trying to blame counterfeiting is weak. It is a diversion to excuse the same behavior he has exhibited many times before. Coming from Sinyard it is especially galling because he got his start making MTB frames by taking a Tom Ritchey frame to Japan and ordering 500 copies. What is the difference between that and some enterprising Chinese doing the same thing with his products?
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+1 said the exact same thing, what does counterfeitting have to do with him going after a small bike shop, who's in no way infringing on his trademark? But the deal is, the Chinese are making $$$ from it, and he's not. He doesn't like it when it's done to him.
 
W

winkybiker

Jun 30, 2012
1,306
4
10,485
Bustedknuckle said:
Big $ tho, even if they win..cheaper to knuckle under to the Spec-Ed asshats.

I would rather walk than use anything from that company...
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Yep, agree......I'm done with them for good. Not so much as a water-bottle from now on. They just don't get it. ***.
 
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