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Big West trademarks Macross in the UK


Marzan

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Hey, just to confirm, the response PDF was BW's response to HG's appeal of an EU court's decision in favor of BW's challenge to HG's trademark application(? copyright application?) for "Macross" in the EU.

Correct me on any of that, and also on any of the following: This is their response being given to I'm guessing an appeals court or office or... Anyway, that means no decision on the appeal has been made yet; it was simply a submission of BW's argument, which the court/office/etc. can use in determining their ruling.

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23 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Hey, just to confirm, the response PDF was BW's response to HG's appeal of an EU court's decision in favor of BW's challenge to HG's trademark application(? copyright application?) for "Macross" in the EU.

Correct me on any of that, and also on any of the following: This is their response being given to I'm guessing an appeals court or office or... Anyway, that means no decision on the appeal has been made yet; it was simply a submission of BW's argument, which the court/office/etc. can use in determining their ruling.

As I read it, I understand that it is not a Big West response.
In fact, I don't know where they got that conclusion.

What I see there, is a summary of the dispute, where Judge Elisa Tricerri, rejected the complaint / lawsuit of Harmony Gold USA for Big West Advertising to register the title and logo of MACROSS, to his property.

And this, in my opinion, implies that within the countries of the European Union, Harmony Gold should, from now on, pay for royalties from the use of the word Macross, to Big West.

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On 2/1/2020 at 12:18 AM, Ikaruss said:

As I read it, I understand that it is not a Big West response.
In fact, I don't know where they got that conclusion.

What I see there, is a summary of the dispute, where Judge Elisa Tricerri, rejected the complaint / lawsuit of Harmony Gold USA for Big West Advertising to register the title and logo of MACROSS, to his property.

And this, in my opinion, implies that within the countries of the European Union, Harmony Gold should, from now on, pay for royalties from the use of the word Macross, to Big West.

Not so fast. The European Union IPO website still has the trademark on Macross as pending unlike Macross Delta were it is confirmed. Harmony Gold's European representatives did a sneaky parallel trademarking of the term which Big West's representatives have asked to be thrown out. There is more to come and with Italian lawyers involved, it might take a bit longer than we expect.

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On 2/3/2020 at 6:00 PM, Marzan said:

Not so fast. The European Union IPO website still has the trademark on Macross as pending unlike Macross Delta were it is confirmed. Harmony Gold's European representatives did a sneaky parallel trademarking of the term which Big West's representatives have asked to be thrown out*. There is more to come and with Italian lawyers involved, it might take a bit longer than we expect.

That's I was asking but nobody answer it.
In fact, now I doubt that anyone else has read it and tried to understand (without offending anyone).

My knowledge of laws, as well as legal language, is low.
But, the little I could understand and get clean, is that: if Big West succeeded (if it didn't already have it), Harmony Gold could lose a big business in Europe.

 

* I don't know what legal move the Harmony Gold legal representative made, but as read in the PDF, her performance was disastrous, the judge having to remind her that the laws were different there.
He even offered evidence that played against him, and in favor of the property of Big West.

 

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On 2/5/2020 at 4:11 AM, Ikaruss said:

That's I was asking but nobody answer it.
In fact, now I doubt that anyone else has read it and tried to understand (without offending anyone).

My knowledge of laws, as well as legal language, is low.
But, the little I could understand and get clean, is that: if Big West succeeded (if it didn't already have it), Harmony Gold could lose a big business in Europe.

 

* I don't know what legal move the Harmony Gold legal representative made, but as read in the PDF, her performance was disastrous, the judge having to remind her that the laws were different there.
He even offered evidence that played against him, and in favor of the property of Big West.

 

I've gone in and seem some of the material that both sides have presented, and it seems pretty weak sauce to be honest. They literally have prints from webpages like ANN that they use for their case. The judges must be facepalming constantly with this case.

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1 hour ago, Marzan said:

I've gone in and seem some of the material that both sides have presented, and it seems pretty weak sauce to be honest. They literally have prints from webpages like ANN that they use for their case. The judges must be facepalming constantly with this case.

This is about average for Harmony Gold's legal counsel, TBH.

Back when Harmony Gold was in arbitration with Tatsunoko over Tatsunoko's accusations that Harmony Gold had been shorting them on royalties owed for broadcast, streaming, and home video sales, the attorney representing Harmony Gold apparently had a bit of an aneurysm and briefly forgot how intellectual property law worked.  He claimed, on HG's behalf, that having used (with permission) aspects of the MOSPEADA IP in derivative works like Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles made Harmony Gold owner of those aspects of the MOSPEADA IP and allowed them to continue using them even in the event of the license expiring.

He was then reminded by the court and Tatsunoko's attorney that that's not remotely correct.

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On 2/5/2020 at 4:11 AM, Ikaruss said:

But, the little I could understand and get clean, is that: if Big West succeeded (if it didn't already have it), Harmony Gold could lose a big business in Europe.

Guess they don’t really care about that. I live in France, so I can tell you that Harmony Gold has no business here in Europe since the 90s. Even their latest comics remain untranslated.

And that’s why Big West already win. I mean, they won the day they struck for the Macross trademark in Europe. Because Harmony Gold cannot prove any genuine use of the trademark. You cannot prove what simply doesn’t exist. So yeah, their legal representative have no choice but to print webpages as evidences. And they did it very, very bad, including webpages that play against their client and even piracy links.

What I’m trying to say is that Harmony Gold fell into their own trap. They trademarked the Macross IP, but never genuinely used it because Macross isn’t Robotech. And just like the UK decision stated, they cannot prevent one of Macross original creator to exploit the trademark for itself. They can make all the appeals they want, it’s just a matter of time.

Of course, this is just the European case. I don't know if laws are similar in the US.

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  • 4 months later...

I'm laughing SO HARD right now...

From a response made by BigWest on the case:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MacrossFanCentral/permalink/1161504870876938/

Quote

For example, the purchase orders presented for Italy (attachment 8 in Harmony's memory of 01.01.2019) refer to 2007, or 5 years before the reference period, not to mention that they refer to the sale of 1 MACROSS hat to a private in the amount of 19.99 €

HG sold ONE HAT in Italy... for 20 Euros

ONE

HAT

Therefore they are the Owners of the entire IP.

Case closed.

Edit: I'm pretty sure I know who was that "Private" customer...

werewrerw.png

Edited by Gerli
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On 7/2/2020 at 12:23 PM, Gerli said:

I'm laughing SO HARD right now...

From a response made by BigWest on the case:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MacrossFanCentral/permalink/1161504870876938/

HG sold ONE HAT in Italy... for 20 Euros

ONE

HAT

Therefore they are the Owners of the entire IP.

Case closed.

Really, their entire argument is full of unintentionally hilarious admissions like that... it's like they hired Homer's lawyer from The Simpsons to represent them in every international market.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
1 hour ago, akt_m said:

F!ck Harmony Gold, f!ck Robotech and f!ck Robotech fans who keep buying their sh1t.

You may not know since you have been gone for a while, but a couple of months ago a Robotech comic framed both the TV series and the novels as alternative universes or secondary canon that the powers that be are seemingly no longer interested in developing further.  Pretty convenient timing with the supposed renewal announcement.  Not sure it was official, but it sure killed any motivation to take Robotech seriously anymore.

Edited by Einherjar
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31 minutes ago, Einherjar said:

but it sure killed any motivation to take Robotech seriously anymore.

I wouldn't be so sure for the hardcore fans. It is a lost cause. They could have figured out decades ago that HG will never deliver anything like SDF-1 by using their own creative team, since they didn't create any of the shows.

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1 hour ago, akt_m said:

I wouldn't be so sure for the hardcore fans. It is a lost cause. They could have figured out decades ago that HG will never deliver anything like SDF-1 by using their own creative team, since they didn't create any of the shows.

I think what they tried to replace it with should count as one of the greatest betrayals in the medium.  One word - Bomba!

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5 hours ago, akt_m said:

F*** Harmony Gold, F*** Robotech and F*** Robotech fans who keep buying their sh*t.

Ohh Very very interesting post...  And if i bought a lot of robotech toys, am I going to be burnt at the stake? :shok:

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28 minutes ago, varitechs said:

Ohh Very very interesting post...  And if i bought a lot of robotech toys, am I going to be burnt at the stake? :shok:

Most of us on the boards here are pretty easy going about fans buying what they want- it's not like they're using our money to do so. We may differ in opinions about what to buy and why but generally it's a live and let live feel. But many here do feel rather strongly against HG and with good reason. Guess I interpreted his statements as more rhetorical than literal.

Don't think you'll need to feel too worried about it- no stake burning from the rest of us I'm sure.

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7 hours ago, Falcon said:

I'm not sure- we haven't heard or seen from the likes of the Doug Bendo's, Meme's (dude that keeps typing everything in captials) and the Kevin McKeever types of the fandom popping up in anything for many years. They have as much life and speed in their fandom as a brain dead tortoise. Even the most deluded from their fandom have at the very least gone into hiding/hibernation and haven't really said anything of note for years now. With the way HG are going, it's highly unlikely they'll be sticking their necks out spouting rhetoric any time soon.

Without going into details, I think they have been been succeeded by fanboys with gamergate sensibilities and achieving the same kind of results.

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12 hours ago, varitechs said:

Ohh Very very interesting post...  And if i bought a lot of robotech toys, am I going to be burnt at the stake? :shok:

Nah, too western... this is anime, so you'll be boiled alive in the giant rice cooker. :p 

 

3 hours ago, Bolt said:

RT is dead. Everyone knows it. No judgement from me on anyone that buys their toys. But i vote with my dollar. 

It's dead from a production standpoint... but they don't need to produce new shows to hold onto those trademarks that they're using to keep Macross out of the US. 

So I'm still gonna judge the crap out people who still buy their sh*t because they're directly financing Harmony Gold's legal effort to stop Macross's expansion into the global market.

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Please tone down the HG hate/bashing or we'll need to lock this up.
Understand you might have feelings about it, many of us do, but nothing new could be said here that hasn't been said for over 35 years now...ad nauseam.

No more F@## this type language please, keep the discussions above the belt.
S

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Can we finally see Harmony Gold's actions and real attitude behind the scenes?

Harmony Gold is doing the same as in this movie:

 

Robotech is a totally dead franchise, that even the fans are not interested in seeing, beyond the 4 crazy monkeys everytime, that I doubt very much that they buy the official products.

maxresdefault.jpg

 

But HG tries to show by all means that the franchise is alive, in order to continue looking for investors.
As is the case with Kids Logic Company, and its 1/6 VF-1S Roy Fokker Cockpit model.
Do you think HG paid any money for this?
No, it was Kids Logic, who surely brought the idea to the people of HG, they pretended to think about the business, and then told them that they accept that they use the name Robotech, if they pay their juicy commission beforehand.

Kids Logic, surely paid everything, and HG took the royalties just for owning the title.

And that is the only reason why they make so many announcements of the eternal movie, and they fought for the rights of the original series.

HG only seeks to maintain the appearance that they are the owners of a promising franchise, when this one is no longer in anyone's interest.

 

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16 hours ago, varitechs said:

Ohh Very very interesting post...  And if i bought a lot of robotech toys, am I going to be burnt at the stake? :shok:

Sorry if I offended you, it was just me ranting. :p

Edited by akt_m
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