Lawsuit Begets a Counter Lawsuit Begets a Class Action Lawsuit.
Trademark Attorney Raj
Abhyanker of Trade markia learned that you can't sue your way to success. He
learned he could not hide a poor business model by suing virtually all his
trademarking competitors – trademark services and trademark attorneys alike, just
because his market share dropped from being one of the top USA filers of
trademarks. Victims of Raj’s overly litigious rage included LegalZoom,
Trademark Engine, The Trademark Company, Legal Sherpa, Trademarks411, Trademark
Plus and not to be left out - even the UPSTO itself.
On August 29th,
one of those competitors, Trade Mark Express bit back by filing a
$1,666,666 counter lawsuit against Trade markia, Legal Force Worldwide and Raj
Abhyanker personally for predatory pricing negligence, ethical violations and
fraud.
Chris De Massa, owner
of Trade Mark Express claims, “It’s one thing to compete fairly in the market
place as a low cost non-legal trademarking company specializing in comprehensive
legal research to help clients avoid
likelihood of confusion refusals from the USPTO or a State, as well as future
cease and desist lawsuits from those with prior rights under Common Law,
(those company’s without trademarks, but have first use rights nevertheless.). But,
it is another to compete with an attorney with superior standing because first
they are an attorney, because people universally trust attorneys. So, when that
same attorney ethically betrays that trust to file 100’s of thousands of
trademarks blindly with no prior research whatsoever so that his fee can be 1/3
our already low fee and also 90% less than competing trademark attorney fees. When
it takes us 8 to 10 hours to process one trademark, including our network of
independent trademark attorneys for final analysis of research and we have to
charge $600 for our Premium Package, how can Trademarkia do the same
work, as attorneys, for just $199? The answer is they don’t. They just file
everyone blindly, and badly. Then if there is a USPTO refusal or cease and
desist order, they charge lots more fees to argue marks that should have never
been filed in the first place. How does $600 compete with $199? How do you
compete against that for a day, let alone 10 years?! How damaging is that to
business owners who invest an average of $30,000 into their new business, just
to find out a year later the business name they chose belongs to another
company and they have to change it because they are infringing and cannot get a
trademark. What is even worse, the selfish habits of Trademarkia have
denigrated the marketplace into not trusting needed trademarking services and
competent trademark attorneys alike, who base the trademark filing upon true
comprehensive research. It hurts employees of those businesses who cannot
afford to rebrand, all their suppliers the marketing chains who accepted them.
Small business start-ups and new product development is the engine of our
economy. Preventable business failures hurt everyone.”
De Massa continued to
say, “One of our countersuit’s 68 exhibits demonstrate the perversity of the
corrupt nature of Trademarkia’s practice. As public record at the USPTO we easily
surveyed attorney Raj Abhyanker’s own DEAD trademarks to see how
many it took to get to 100. We always knew this was a problem because of caller
complaints, but we were floored by the frequency. It only took a couple days to
compile 100 marks that should never had been filed. The surprising thing was
that it took a survey of only 155 consecutive filings to reach 100. We did not
want to accused of cherry picking trademark filings. Stunningly, 62 were
likelihood of confusion refusals – the worst kind – that could have easily
found if a comprehensive legal search had been done. The same research the
USPTO tells people to do before filing any trademark. The other 38 DEAD marks
were judgement mistakes an experienced firm would normally help a client avoid,
like merely
descriptive refusals or simple
specimen errors the client refused to spend more $ to easily fix. So,
Trademarkia’s poor record is even worse, because simple mistakes could have
been avoided. The expected ethics of the legal profession is for attorneys to
provide honest, accurate, good legal advice. Not with Trademarkia. For over 10
years they have received the same type of USPTO refusals, over and over again, yet
they have not changed their practices. It has been apparent to us the answer is
an ever changing quest for market share – at the expense of everyone else”,
said DeMassa.
Proposed
Class Action Lawsuit
Trade Mark Express is
seeking ex-clients of Trademarkia who have had their trademark applications
refused or cease and desisted against. We want to hear from businesses damaged
by Trademarkia’s unethical practice so we can put together a class action law
suit to help recoup any monetary losses.
We think there are
between 30,000 to 50,000 businesses that have been damaged when their new
trademarks were refused or later over the years opposed because of
Trademarkia’s predatory pricing practices. If your company may have been
injured, please contact
Trade Mark Express @ 650-948-0530.
LINKS:
Trade Mark Express – http://www.tmexpress.com/index.php
Comprehensive legal
research – https://www.tmexpress.com/choose-trademark-express/#cs
Premium Package - https://www.tmexpress.com/order-my-trademark/
Merely descriptive
refusals - https://www.uspto.gov/trademark/additional-guidance-and-resources/possible-grounds-refusal-mark
Raj Abhyanker’s own
DEAD trademarks – See Attached.
contact TradeMark
Express - https://www.tmexpress.com/contact-us/
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