Of course now I had my registration and Busbridge being told he could now also apply, meant I now had to enter yet another battle. This time to oppose his application to register the Mark,VIPER. This kicked off around the end of 2002 after I had got back from my escape from Death in Spain. The only thing I suppose I could say on the plus side was it took my mind off my health, (although I felt fine) and it gave me something to do in my retirement. It kept my mind ticking over as well.
The next eighteen months were taken up compiling my case for this opposition, compiling all the documentary evidence. I tried to stick to facts, but Busbridge would keep going on about every subject under the Sun. In my opposition to Chrysler I had used Kings, and of course that cost me. He was cheap option as he was not a lawyer, but now I could not even afford him and especially a full blown lawyer. These Intellectual Property lawyers cost the Earth with minimums of £150 and hour. Another point for anybody intending to fight to protect their IP. I could do a, .very long rant here on the whole system and on how small companies or even individuals stand no chance to protect their IP against big companies, intent to steal what you have created. Even when like me your fighting against a small time crook who is representing himself, you still stand little chance of getting it right and winning.
I had to also represent myself, so because Busbridge brought into the fight ,through his ignorance and desire to slag me off at every turn, lots of irrelevant rubbish. I was then forced to answer all his accusations. I had to make sure that I did this in case the Hearing Officer did listen to what he was ranting on about. I also did not know exactly what was relevant from a legal point. So I had to also bring up stuff which I thought I had better do, just in case.
Don't forget these hearings are supposed to be informal, and you are legally able to represent yourself. But I was told that these Hearing Officers, and especially certain ones, did not like to have to listen to a lot of irrelevant waffle. I with my luck had to end up with one of them as you will see later on.
I got together a full and comprehensive story of the history of my involvement with the Trade Mark. How I had taken on Busbridge, how I felt that I should not be having to even be fighting this battle because of his bankruptcy. How I took on Busbridge as my agent for a second time in 1989/1990. How he had been responsible for selling my kits and doing the advertising for same under my jurisdiction. How I carried on just making the fully built cars and how I gave them orders for same. Produced all the documentary evidence of their written orders for kits and copies of my invoices for same. Showed how I had produced colour pages for both our brochures and how I had advertised for Cobra/Viper parts, a small separate business I had set up for both of us too do. How I had set up a photo shoot to get a good set of photos for both Busbridge and I to use for our advertising. How I had sold Vipers in the UK, fully built, to the London guy and one car to a Dutch guy. Everything I said verbally was backed up with documentary evidence. I thought I just could not fail, and I would have to win. All this was over time, submitted to the PO and believe me it is a long tiring process made so by their anarchic rules. Also by the fact that the PO slow things down with their slowness and willingness to let your opponent off when they do not submit things in the timescale as set out.
I have studied my files on what took place in the lead up to the hearing In June 2004. I found that I had had to make no less than 11 letters of complaint to the PO. Mostly they dealt with them allowing Busbridge to put in evidence over the time limit. Also for them allowing him to allow more evidence on top of that he had already put, and somehow he had only just found. Of course he had it all the time but in his desperation to slag me off as much as he could, he wanted to cram in even more documents, all of which had already been around and could have been put in at the onset. A few times I had my way and a few times they bent over backwards and allowed him this evidence even when it was put in well over the cut off date they had given him.
I had at one stage to severely castigate them for telling him they would not allow his extra evidence, and I then had to put in a statement in reply dealing with what had been put in. Only for weeks later for him to ignore what they had said, and to put in this extra evidence which they then went and allowed. This meant I had to redo my statement completely and I had wiped my original statement where I had dealt with what they then disallowed. It meant extra postage and time wasted and I billed them for it. Do you think they ever paid for their mistake? A few of my letters of complaint were just ignored, which is a familiar pattern of events with the PO.
One big subject I had to cover in depth was his assertions that he owned the name VIPER and that at the point in time when he went bankrupt in 1993, before that he had assigned all the assets of Cobretti Engineering and this included the asset of the Mark, to a new company he had set up, called Autotrak Ltd. I pointed out that by their every own rules, assignments had to be made for a consideration IE paid for, and that the PO had to be informed of the assignment in the correct way, within SIX MONTHS. This had not been done and in fact it had taken Busbridge some TEN YEARS TO DO THIS!!. He had notified the PO only in 2003 and he also notified them of two more so called assignments after the first one. Both supposedly done in 2002 one to another company he had formed called Autotrak(Cobretti) Ltd and then the last one back to himself. Any person with the slightest intelligence could see through all this, and come to the conclusion as to the scam being carried out. The PO showed that they were just going to accept this nonsense, so I just kept onto them about it. I certainly made a big deal of it in my written evidence. Also they had included the 1992 alleged assignment in the 1994 case, yet the assignment was supposedly done in 1992 before the 1994 Act came in, so should have been dealt with under the 38Act.
I believe that when he knew that he was going to be faced with having to justify his application, he panicked. He knew I would make a big deal out of the fact that he had gone bankrupt and could not therefore say he owned the non registered Mark. I knew he was getting some legal advice and I guess he was advised to fraudulently make it appear that these assignments had been done. Of course he would also have to show that the Mark had "come back to him, nicely and in time for this hearing" This because the company Autotrak (Cobretti) Ltd did not show him as a director (due to his bankruptcy) so the last alleged assignment had to be shown. The whole think stank to high heavens, but the PO in their infinite wisdom just turned a blind eye, even though their own rules had not been kept to.
The whole of Busbridges evidence was a pack of lies and when I kept calling him a serial liar he would get most upset, however my documentary evidence showed samples of evidence for each and every statement I made about his lies. For instance during the time from his bankruptcy he had traded under no less that six trading names and using the Mark. So how could he claim that he alone was always using this Mark he claimed to own?? These different companies were using the Trade Mark Viper, yet there was no record of him assigning or licensing it to any of these companies. Sometimes a limited company, sometimes just a trading name. Why was this? It was to confuse people trying to do business with him. I knew he was short of cash still and customers were being ripped off. I researched Companies House records and found of the two companies Autotrak Ltd and Autotrak Cobretti Ltd, none had EVER PUT IN A SET OF ACCOUNTS OR REPORTS.
NOW HERE WE HAVE A PRIME EXAMPLE OF YET ANOTHER SHOWER OF INCOMPETENT CIVIL SERVANTS. I mean in Companies House. I wrote to them and blew the whistle on his activities and asked them why they had let him get off with NEVER putting in accounts etc? Eventually they scrubbed off the companies, yet they never answered any of my questions.
The exact same thing happened with YET ANOTHER SET OF INCOMPETENT CIVIL SERVANTS.....THE MOB AT THE INSOLVENCY SERVICE. I had warned them back in 1994 that he was trading illegally and was even showing himself as a director of Autotrak Ltd. That he had hidden assets like the Mark etc. I banged on to them time and again over the years, about this. Those useless bastards should have stripped him of that Mark and all the other assets he hid. Late in the day, years later they did visit him and he would put on his little boy lost looks and attitude. Butter would not melt in his mouth, he came across as such an angel, and so put upon by the big ogre Cook. The stupid gits obviously believed all he spun them. And who lost out because of them?????? All the creditors, especially if he had ever got money off Chrysler, plus the profits he made out of it all over the years off my back and what I had designed and made.
But I digress here, but civil servants give me high blood pressure. Can you name a government department in this country that works????? Nothing works we are like a banana republic. In fact some banana republics work better than we do, and at least their kleptomaniac dictators are very adept at pinching their peoples money. The wankers here couldn't even do that, as well.
Back to the lies of Busbridge in his so called evidence. He was still claiming that he owned and used the Mark going back to 1988. He conveniently never said in his evidence that this was as an agent for me and my company BRL. This was now on record and yet the PO never ever questioned this. In fact it seemed to me that they just believed everything he ever said. You will shortly see why I say this.
In November 2003 Busbridge tries yet another ploy to denigrate my honesty, now he puts in a request to include (at a late date) extra evidence that has suddenly come to light. It concerned the equally abhorrent Mr 'Liar' Findlay, and it came via the even more abhorrent Mr Tanner of Pilgrim. This obnoxious trio are as thick as thieves. Of course Busbridge only ever advertised in Kitcar magazine, owned by Tanner and of course they were busom buddies ( you know like with like and all that) Tanner tells Busbridge that he has evidence that I am a serial forger, and goes on to tell him about the legal battle Tanner had had against a Tony Barrass-way back, and to which I have indicated would reappear. So here we are again. He says he has a signed and sworn statement off Findlay (from that action) in which Findlay says I forged his signature. Thus I am a serial forger.
Busbridge did his usual trick as well, of also throwing in a whole load of other lies which either he had already brought up or were irrelevant. But sticking to the main issue, what the idiots did not either know or overlooked is that all along I could blow this accusation out of the water. Levaggi the solicitor as I told you, spoke with Findlay at length on the phone AFTER HE HAD SIGNED THE STATEMENT IN QUESTION. Levaggi was the solicitor I had taken on to go after Busbridge for breaking my copyright on my chassis design and he had asked ths Findlay bloke to sign a statement to do with my chassis. In that conversation he agreed he had signed it. I had found Levaggi as he had moved to another law firm, and he agreed to appear in any Court if wanted, to verify that it was all lies. I had not used this opportunity as it never came to having to. Now it is in the arena again this time with Busbridge.
I objected strongly to the PO against this being accepted into the case on the grounds it was all hearsay, I had Levaggi the solicitor that would verify it as lies and it was all irrelevant to the case and that the case to which it referred to, never even got to Court, so was never tested. The PO fairly quickly for them, in five months agreed and it was refused. WOW they got something right for once.
Starting about October I got yet another headache to deal with. Mr Habitual Liar Busbridge, thinks up another wheeze, or is advised of it, to denigrate me some more. He applies to have my registration, won after a TEN YEAR BATTLE against Chrysler, declared Invalid by starting a process called a Request for Declaration of Invalidity of my registration. He would on this application dredge up all the lies of before and some more. This man knew no bounds to what he could lie about. he should have been certified as a menace to society. Trouble is with the PO you can lie all you like, they are just not interested if you lie. Even when I showed them by means of documentary evidence, that he was lying, they just plowed on. Had this been in a proper Court of Law, he would eventually get done for perjury and perverting the course of justice. If I had gone to the Police I would have got nowhere as an individual.
He had to put in a statement saying why he thought my registration was invalid. The list he gives shows just how cheeky he is and what a liar he is:-
1/ I am guilty of passing off. In other words as I am making vehicles of the same design as his and using the same Mark, IT IS ME THAT IS GUILTY OF THE COPYING AND THEREFORE IT IS ME DECEIVING THE PUBLIC. In other words I am guilty of saying to the Public here is MY vehicle, when it is not my vehicle or design but his!!! I will leave you to draw your own conclusion on that.
2/ My registration should not have been allowed as he had put in an application for the Mark before me. I have touched on this already.
Boiled down to its barest, that is all he tried to rely on. Naturally I kicked up a great stink over this as I was already involved in a fight with him with my opposition to his registration and the evidence would be exactly the same for both cases. Why force anybody to have to fight two parallel cases on virtually the same subjects? I went to a local lawyer and got legal advice and it would seem that he had no case and I got much advice if I had to fight it. However I banged on to the PO over and over about why they were even allowing this to go ahead. I had to go through the motions of putting in Counter Statements and so on. This put a great deal of yet more work onto me, as if my work of opposing his application wasn't already enough to do anyway.
I will not go into detail of every letter that went between me and the PO, because it is going to be irrelevant, as you should know that after much letter writing and me arguing with the IPO, ( as is normal with anything to do with the IPO) at long last in June 2005, I got a letter off the IPO stating:-"Following a review of the proceedings it appears appropriate to suspend this invalidity application pending resolution of the recording of an assignment by Busbridge in the opposition to registration by Mr Cook." You will remember that I had kicked up a stink about the IPO allowing Busbridge to say he had assigned the Mark to himself etc. The Invalidity case started in Oct 2003 and the opposition case hearing was in June 2004. You may ask like I did, why did they not think of this right at the beginning? Why did it take a year, seven months, to come to this conclusion? So the two cases overlapped and in the opposition hearing a decision was made to look into these alleged assignments. So the next story is to tell you the outcome of that hearing.
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