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TWI has sued me, and I hope TWI's attorneys like to ski


pjroberge
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A few of you in chat got the news that TWI's pit bulls(their lawyers) have sued me in Vermont Federal court.

I am relieved that they went first so that they will have to pay the expenses attached to this lawsuit, versus me going to OHIO.

TWI's lawyers have already made a couple mistakes, and I wish they would have sent in a first stringer instead of a 4th stringer, but you can't always have what you want. ( I would have preferred more challenging Legal homework practice)

TWI is spending their member's abs on attempting to get thewayinternational.com from me without paying for it. Instead, they are willing to incur press coverage and spend tens of thousands on legal fees to ultimatly lose, or to gain another "victory" for Rosie to brag about to her lawyers.

Gee, such a victory if they win for Rosie to brag about. TWI will spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a domain name, one that we were too stupid to get many years ago.

Gee, will they admit that a so called copout outsmarted TWI's "spiritual heavies" who didn't get revelation that I was going to register the domain name? But hey,TWI can use the power they now wield called lawyers to get it done, they hope.

Gee harvey,Rosie, and gang, not one of you were warned by your god or anyone to spend the $20 to register it first? Kinda like the betamax revelation huh?

All information including all correspondances with TWI's attorneys will be published for everyone to see, as I intend to have a very public trial. Enjoy!

Edited by pjroberge
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I had revelation in 1992 to leave TWI. It came in an audible voice. It said, "If it snows on the gas pumps, get out!" So what if it was winter and so what if the snow was already on the gas pumps when I got revelation? The voice also said, "I will teach you more about the Word if you just get the hell out!" So I did and began looking for my own groupies, found none, then later got my own dot.com. God didn't tell me, that I know of, to get a dot.com. But since I was held responsible for revelation while in TWI, I guess TWI should be held responsible for the actions of PJRoberge, you magnificent bastard!

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Wowzers! It really is a Japanese motorcycle sales site. Can there actually be two websites with the exact same address? Somehow, I doubt it. Looks like they definitely beat you to it, Pat. And looks like TWI make be barking up the wrong legal tree (so to speak).

How does this already existing site figure into the whole equation?

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They're actually totally different names - "wayinternational.com" was registered to a guy in Irvine, CA. in 2003 according to the domain searches I did. "thewayinternational.com" is regsitered to a guy in Vermont. icon_smile.gif:)--> You could register "thewayinternationale.com tomorrow, it's not taken.

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Pat, I'm interested in how this will work out. I won't push for details till you're ready, but in light of ICANN's (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) rules and regs for domain name procurement how will this play out. Namely, the "bad faith" section. Here's the section I'm talking about:

Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:

(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or

(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or

(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or

(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.

--------

Is the Way Nash's approach going to be that you secured the name to prevent their rights as users, misrepresent it, or...?

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quote:
(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name
TWI's going to win this, without spending much.
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Interesting,

I would argue that it is not in bad faith because of TWI's bashing of the evil Internet and becasue their policies againt Internet use by thier followers.

TWI had plenty of time to register this domain name, why didn't they? Dumbasses -- that's why.

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Since TWI is a .ORG right now, I can't see any use for acquiring the .COM version, unless they're planning to put the Way Bookstore on line. That's the only thing that would make sense. Then again, I'm talking about TWI - make sense, that's a good one. icon_biggrin.gif:D-->

Ahem, anyway, I think what they're trying to do is reserve for themselves any and all web addresses that folks would type in that could lead to their current site.

I've heard of something in the past where some commercial site's lost their web addresses when someone bought and re-registered their domain names when these companys forgot to re-register their site at year's end. These companies were then forced to pay exsorbitent fees to reobtain their domain names. Most of them paid without a legal fight. Probably because it would be less expensive.

Of course, the people who did this had no other legitamate use for the domain names they obtained this way than to sell them back to the original registrant.

As I understand it, Pat has been re-registering and using "thewayinternational.com" for quite some time now. I don't see how TWI can claim that they have a "right" to it at this point in time. Then again I'm not a lawyer, just a Tech Support guy.

Technobyte

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When I registered the domain name, TWI had no interest apparently in the name. They had registered the way.com, org, net but didn't seem to care about the wayinternational.com, org, or net.

Heck, some of you will remember that for years TWI owned the domain names but didn't even have a website.

I have owned thewayinternational.com for I believe 4-5 years, and it was not expired. It was unwanted by TWI, so I registered it...

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quote:
(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWI's going to win this, without spending much.


This is not the situation, and if TWI does win, it will cost them plenty. The domain name was for sale as you all know, and TWI didn't even e-mail me of their interest in purchasing it.

TWI instead tried to bully me into giving it to them because if I didn't, their attack dogs (lawyers) would do the court route.

Guess what TWI, like your betamax revelation you've blown it and are doing so again. The court is on my turf and the brunt of the expenses are yours. Harvey, Rosie and gang, if you do win by some fluke, it will have cost you tens of thousands of your members ABS, press coverage, and a whole lot of embarrassing questions being asked in court and publically displayed for all to see.

I thought you said one case down, one to go. Apparently you are back to two. Is your little cult not prevailing like you would like??

PS: How's the Peeler case going?

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Run any metasearch with the words "the way international" and guess what?

TWI is NOT the only company with those words in it. Are they going to be the spiritual Metallica and sue everyone who infringes on their name in just the slightest?

(Metallica sued Victoria's Secret several years ago for naming a siver colored eyeliner "Metallica" screaming they were using the band's name.)

So, why don't they go after these other companies? They've got web sites up and running using those same words.

Pat doesn't.

They're not going to sell their books online - they don't even sell them to their own members if they don't think they've had the right classes or are in good enough standing order. Besides, they'd still be under the non-profit tax umbrella.

I still don't get it other than they have a ax to grind with Pat because he's been actively making people aware of the inner workings of TWI via the net.

p.s.

Pat - there was a thread on Waydale about TWI's big, fat, blank web site. It may do you good to dig that up - that thread is at least 4 years old now.

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Good point, Pat. The dot com was sitting there when the Way registered the others and they didn't register it. Org is appropriate, dot com is for commercial endeavors. Usually when a company wants to insure that all url entries will come to them and they want their name to be covered, they register all of them and redirect the unused to the one they're actually using for a site.

ICANN.com itself does that, by placing you at a page with links that directs you to the actual sites with content that are all net and org domains. They registered them all but really only use the ones appropriate. It makes the whole use of the url names simpler, and for a large organization it makes sense to have them all. Then no matter what a person types in (and the com is still the one nearly everyone defaults first time) they'll get to the right spot. Was/is the Way just ignorant, stupid? You'd think their "legal" advisors would have advised them according to normal accepted business practice. Since the Way is an international effort with what, activities in 50 countries is it? what were they thinking? Their action seems to indicate their interest in the dot com was nil. Still, I wonder if their actual right to it is arguable. Guess they think so.

The Way left the dot com. They're not a commercial endeavor. (So they say). From their standpoint which may have very well been due to a lack of expertise in internet set up (go figure) their intent may have been established by what they did and didn't do. ?

At first pass though, I'd say they may have an argument. That's why I'm curious to see more of the story.

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I know of at least two ministries that use The Way in their names. An acquaintance of mine has worked with one, and they have no background of any kind with the New Knoxville Way, past or present. Might as well be on different planets.

My name is the same as a well known professional athlete. He has a domain name that includes another word plus his name. I was researching it as a domain name and discovered that another person with my same name has registered the actual name as a dot com. So I had some other avenues to pursue, such as a _ in the name, or additional characters. In my case I learned a name is a name is a name. If it's registered, it's registered. The IP address is always assigned as a different one, but the name as a collection of letters has to be different. And the fact that the other person's name is the same, it's a done deal. Their intent was identical to mine.

If someone else had it registered and wasn't using it, I could buy it, or negotiate a turnover of some kind when it lapsed. Or just wait. To prove fraud of some kind would be fairly involved, and expensive I discovered. In my case, it was a no brainer. There were legitimate legal rights being exercised by those who had registered the name.

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I'm no lawyer, but isn't this an estoppel case? Since Pat's had the domain for years, and TWI knew about it for years without doing anything about it, that's a tacit agreement to his ownership of it. Estoppel basically says that once you've stipulated something, you're not allowed to go back and dispute it later. If you don't vigorously and immediately defend your trademark after you know someone else is using it, you don't get to defend it later when it becomes convenient. That's why Arnold Schwarzenegger had to sue the Oregon company making "Governator Ale" immediately. (see today's news.)

(They had a similar case with a Lone Ranger-type actor on "L.A. Law" once, and James Spader argued a similar case on the past two episodes of "The Practice". The L.A. Law episode dealt with an actor who went around making public appearances as his old tv cowboy character for years, then the company that owned the rights wanted to do a remake and stop the old actor from appearing as that character again. The Practice episodes dealt with Spader's character arguing that the firm couldn't fire him for his bad acts since they had known of them from the start and profited by them. He won, the cowboy lost, if memory serves.)

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Long Gone: Although the arguments about the situation appear sound, not all the required elements are present for TWI to prevail. Their only chance is intimidation, and they picked the wrong person.

Socks: I didn't explain well before. TWI registered theway.org,com,net but did not register thewayinternational.com, org, or net

Paul A of waydale in fact had advised TWI while he worked for them to do so and they never took his advice.

Since the $ involved is small compared to the $ TWI ....es away on other things, I assumed that they had no interest in the domain name thewayinternational.com.

So I registered it, and had it for 2-3 years before TWI even had a website up or found out I had the name registered.

They are afraid that I will use it to disseminate information about them perhaps, but the real reason in my opinion is actually quite a shocker.

I think TWI is scared ....less about how the Peeler case is going, and they see losing in the near future. TWI is looking for any kind of "victory" to bring to their members so that they won't all just all jump off the sinking ship.

Look at how they played up Doug Mc******'s deliberate give me in the tresspassing trial.

He gave it to them intentionally, and TWI bragged about it as a "victory".

It's like when a person throws the fight and then the so called "winner" brags about their "victory".

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