Merchandise Trademark?

[MooneyPoor]

This guy is over on FB selling some merchandise figured someone may want to know @Jonny

[Rusty Pilot]

Mooney merchandise can be purchased on the Mooney website mooney.com (shop tab) for excellent prices and helps to support our brand.  Here is the link to the hooded sweatshirts for men Mooney - Mooney Speed Shop Fans - Apparel-Men Hoodies/Sweats (merchorders.com).  

 

[midlifeflyer]

I haven't seen the ad itself. How do you know he is not a licensee?

[shawnd]

I would love to see some better designs than just logos slapped on clothing. Plenty of people here have great ideas, maybe let them sell on the shop? Figure out costs but let the creativity flow! This is coming from a guy who has bought 7-10 t-shirts and ~3 hoodies featuring Mooney in one way or form. And happy to keep buying more :-)

[MooneyPoor]

52 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

I haven't seen the ad itself. How do you know he is not a licensee?

No idea if he is or not. If not, I assume since I called the guy out on Facebook and the thread has been either deleted or I've been blocked it's not legit. 
 

I'd rather someone support the brand through Mooney Speed Shop or approved licenses. 
 

social media is a relatively free market and Mooney not having made a Facebook post or Instagram since Jan 16th 2020 is kind of crazy. Everyone assumes marketing is expensive(too much mad men on HBO I guess)  and they need to focus on other things but  this is "low hanging fruit" that's being missed. 
 

[MooneyPoor]

12 minutes ago, MooneyPoor said:

No idea if he is or not. If not, I assume since I called the guy out on Facebook and the thread has been either deleted or I've been blocked it's not legit. 
 

I'd rather someone support the brand through Mooney Speed Shop or approved licenses. 
 

social media is a relatively free market and Mooney not having made a Facebook post or Instagram since Jan 16th 2020 is kind of crazy. Everyone assumes marketing is expensive(too much mad men on HBO I guess)  and they need to focus on other things but  this is "low hanging fruit" that's being missed. 
 

Now looking into this dudes bio I doubt anyone from Phillipines GinGoog City has licenses. 

[201Steve]

There are quite a few independent designers on various "do it yourself" online stores that produce Mooney gear. This wouldn't be the only guy. No idea what the licensing process is but I would assume they are just free lancers taking a shot at it. A quick Google search for "Mooney aircraft apparel" or "Vintage Mooney T shirt" will yield several of the aforementioned vendors.

[RobertGary1]

Having dealt with this a bit the onus is on Mooney to enforce its trademark universally. You can’t selectively enforce it. At least that is what the lawyers told us.  

[MooneyMitch]

Slow news day ?

[midlifeflyer]

1 hour ago, 201Steve said:

No idea what the licensing process is

It's a contract between the trademark owner and someone who wants to use it.

[201Steve]

33 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

It's a contract between the trademark owner and someone who wants to use it.

Captain obvious.... I meant specifically the ease of access to licensing ventures with Mooney Corp if one even exists, and what that agreement looks like. As pointed out above, it requires resources to operate/enforce/advertise. My money says, given the state of the company, no such structure exists.

[PeteMc]

There are two Mooney Aircraft Corporations and one Mooney Aircraft, Inc that show up in a TX Tax/Business search.  Also noticed on the Mooney site in their apparel section that some of the garments do have the (R) next to the name. 

So it appears there is a legal entity for Mooney Aircraft and the Name/Logo is a registered trademark.  (Really need someone that knows the legal end of this stuff to find out what the status is and how much they really registered.)

[EricJ]

3 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

Having dealt with this a bit the onus is on Mooney to enforce its trademark universally. You can’t selectively enforce it. At least that is what the lawyers told us.  

That's always been what I've been told as well, if you don't enforce it, it could be considered abandoned and you could lose rights to it.   OTOH, US trademark and copyright laws do not apply outside the US and IP laws are very different in different parts of the world.   Importation might create a problem, but otherwise the dude may be perfectly legit to sell things anywhere a trademark isn't registered or enforced.

 

[M20F]

If anyone wants to buy some Piper t-shirts cheap, just message me. 
 

Happy New Year!

[midlifeflyer]

13 hours ago, 201Steve said:

Captain obvious.... I meant specifically the ease of access to licensing ventures with Mooney Corp if one even exists, and what that agreement looks like. As pointed out above, it requires resources to operate/enforce/advertise. My money says, given the state of the company, no such structure exists.

OTOH I would be very surprised if the current principals of Mooney International Corp, the current owner of the Mooney aircraft trademarks,  lacked a rudimentary licensing structure for the brand, even if they were not aggressively going after every Tom, Dick, and Harry who might infringe. 

[midlifeflyer]

13 hours ago, PeteMc said:

There are two Mooney Aircraft Corporations and one Mooney Aircraft, Inc that show up in a TX Tax/Business search.  Also noticed on the Mooney site in their apparel section that some of the garments do have the (R) next to the name. 

So it appears there is a legal entity for Mooney Aircraft and the Name/Logo is a registered trademark.  (Really need someone that knows the legal end of this stuff to find out what the status is and how much they really registered.)

There are current two "live" Mooney US registered trademarks. The word "Mooney", which shows as having been used as a trademark since 1930, was registered in 1972. The newer Eagle-M emblem was registered in 2015. The current registered owner of the marks is Mooney International  Corporation, which  was assigned the word mark in 2013 and registered the logo. I have read that the new "owners" bought Mooney International Corporation but have not attempted to confirm it.

The next required maintenance activity is on the logo. There's a certificate of  continued use which us due between years 5 and 6. It's due by May 2021. Even if not currently representing the corp, the lawyer who handled the registration knows about it. 

[Hank]

36 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

The next required maintenance activity is on the logo. There's a certificate of  continued use which us due between years 5 and 6. It's due by May 2021. Even if not currently representing the corp, the lawyer who handled the registration knows about it. 

What about the vintage logos? I've only seen two, one is painted on my tail, one is on my Owners Manual. Are there others?

 

[midlifeflyer]

51 minutes ago, Hank said:

What about the vintage logos? I've only seen two, one is painted on my tail, one is on my Owners Manual. Are there others?

 

There were six other Mooney registrations which the company (whatever it was at the time) allowed to expire ("abandoned").  Most likely it was just improper maintenance.  Two involve this version of the logo. Especially in the past, it was not uncommon for a small private company to lose a registration for poor basic maintenance. It's similar to setting up an LLC, forgetting about process, not filing annual reports, and finding out at some point it was administratively dissolved (I helped clean up a messy aircraft title involving that this past year).

But, in terms of the vintage logos, a bit of Trademark 101: Unlike some other countries, US Registration does not create trademarks.  Using a a word, phrase, or symbol  creates a trademark. Technically, the US allows registration of trademarks which already exist. Try to register something as a trademark without showing that you are using it in commerce , and registration will be rejected.  Registration definitely does have some benefits which include public notice it is being used, broader geographic protection for expansion, and some procedural advantages, but it's the use of the name and logo to on aircraft to indicate it came from the Mooney company which would allow the Mooney company to protect it from infringement.