Thursday 21 May 2009

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 20.

THE IMPLICATIONS TO ALL WITH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, OF THIS CASE.

I believe that what this case shows, and I do not doubt that out there, there probably are many more such unreported cases, that in this country those who have designs, trade marks, copyrights, patents etc, simply cannot rely on the Intellectual Property Office to protect their rights or treat them with competence and honesty.

So you can understand exactly how you could end up like me, having had my I/P stolen from me by a cheating agent, then suffering 17 years of endless hassle via the IPO, losing over £750K of profits, losing my health and having to retire 5 years early with a business worth SWFA, I am going to give you a quick run down on the main points. I am sure many will not have read the full story so this brief rundown will help:-
1/ 1986 I and my son and staff design a kitcar and give it the trade name Viper. Like many small businesses I am too busy and short of cash to immediately register the mark. However I am still covered legally by common law.
2/ In the beginning of 1988 I take on an agent Cobretti Engineering, in London, for the South East.
3/ In late 1989 I have to get rid of two partners so start a new company. I retake on the agent, but this time I will only manufacture the product and make fully built cars, while the agent Cobretti will handle all the retailing of the kits UK wide.
4/ In mid 1991 Cobretti decide to repay all the business I put their way, by copying my designs and also pinching the Trade Mark. They attempt to cheat Chrysler by saying they own the mark but will sell it to them for anything up to £500K.
5/ I find out at this time that Chrysler want to register my trade mark.
6/ I also find out that Cobretti also want to register my trade mark.
7/ I have to cover myself and also register my mark.
8/ I first of all have to oppose Chrysler who had their application in before Cobretti. Cobretti's application is put on hold until my case (I am claiming prior use from 1986)
9/After a snail like 10 year case I win against Chrysler.
10/ Thinking that it was a foregone conclusion that the Cobretti application would be dropped by IPO because I have had use since 1986 and now have registration, was a foolish naive thought for they immediately reinstate their application.
11/ Now I have to fight them. I had paid for legal representation with Chysler but cannot stretch to this, this time so am forced to do the case myself.
12/ An application hearing is set for mid 2004 and I will be opposing. It is very apparent that the miserable hearing officer Reynolds doesn't like hearings where the applicants and opposers represent themselves. I lose and am given perverse reasons for losing.
13/ The reason given was that in the infinite wisdom of Reynolds I was deemed in 1990 when I retook on Cobretti as an agent that I had abandoned my mark. I was incredulous as the reason given was that this was because I had not advertised my product and used my Trade Mark in doing so. I had allowed Cobretti as retailer to do this thus they had "taken" over my mark. What a load of cobblers and crap!! I can think of many manufacturers who have agents who retail and advertise their products, yet have never heard of a single case where one has thus lost thier T/M. Think of Ford or Vauxhall etc. I did have evidence of my advertising my mark and I had made five fully built cars for customers in the period 1990/1991. What were they called???
I also had all the orders and invoices to and from Cobretti and the mark was shown on some of those. All ignored by the ignoramus Reynolds
15/ As any appeal would have to be done through the High Court at great cost (at least £50K)
obviously I had to let it all go. BRITISH JUSTICE IPO STYLE!!!
16/ 2005. A hearing was ordered by the IPO to look into alleged assignments which I had queried the validity of, this at the application hearing by Reynolds. Another hearing officer Landau (probably the only honest H/O in the IPO) found that Busbridge had no legal right to the mark. This because when he and his brother split up their partnership in 1992, Robert did not buy out his brothers share, so he had no rights to register the mark and it was declared null and void. He also referred to his bankruptcy.
17/ Busbridge appealed over the assignments, but he was allowed to appeal to an independent QC rather than as under the 38 Act to the High Court. This service is FREE. He drops his appeal after getting loads of free advice from this QC on how he can stitch me up.
18/ By any rights you would think that the original Landau decision would now be enacted. Not on your life!!!!!!! Not when the IPO are concerned.
19/Busbridge now puts into motion the advice. Apply to have the records of the original registration application to be changed to ONLY HIS NAME and dropping the name of his brother. So Hey Presto he is now the legal owner of the Mark, even though I too have it registered. So what is the point of having a    T/M when the IPO allow two people to have same Mark for identical products. All my evidence for this application to be denied is ignored by H/O Foley. I can appeal.
20/ At the appeal again all my evidence is ignored and I lose again thanks to the corrupt ways of the IPO who as far as I am concerned had decided way back because I had complained bitterly for their actions or non actions. Someone had decided I was to pay for being cheeky enough to make waves for civil servants. I was doomed to lose as they knew I had no clout or money to get expert legal help to really show them up.


Wednesday 20 May 2009

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 19.



Now who was this woman Professsor Annand, who heard this appeal. On researching her I see that at least since 2001 and up to 2006, she heard no leas than around FIFTY ODD CASES FOR THE IPO, as a hearing officer. This for the IPO and the Treasury Solicitor. My first thought is that the Treasuries job is to see that they spend as little money as possible. If she finds for me that opens the door to me suing the IPO and we cannot have that, can we? So I am not holding my breath. For we have a person who has worked for the IPO for years and one has to ask where are her loyalties? She may even still be paid for by the IPO for all I know. I am sure the UK Public are well aware of all the gross cases where government departments judge themselves. The list includes Politicians, Dentists, Doctors, Police, solicitors etc, to name a few. Then we have all these supposedly independent OMBUDSMEN. What a joke they are, independent my backside. My MP of a few years ago who was old enough to be in the know, told me to never waste my time going them as they were all a waste of time. How right he was. So the person who heard this appeal did not fill me with any hope whatsoever and within minutes of the appeal starting, her words spelled out what the outcome was going to be.

The hearing Officer Foley, who heard the application to rectify the register and to change the details that the IPO have of both Martin Busbridge and Robert Busbridge as being the registered owners of the Mark Viper, to that of only Robert Busbridge. You may ask, "well so what, does it matter who is registered as the owner" I say it is important, because at a previous hearing Hearing Officer Landau said clearly that Robert was just not legally able, to even apply for the registration as he had never bought out his brothers 50% of the business and its assets. He said that the registration of the mark had to be annulled. Now several devious avenues down the line, the IPO have manipulated things to now put all that on its head, and to now arrive at a situation where they have manipulated everything to Busbridges advantage, and they have found excuses to say that he was perfectly and legally able to steal his brothers half of the business. I had hoped that this Annand person would be looking at what Landau had said, and asking why it was never carried out. Obviously she never had the guts to do that, for her job was to make sure the devious ways the IPO had concocted to allow Busbridge to keep his registration, carried on uninterrupted. So I hope you can see why I tried to stick in my oar and stop the registration ever being in only Roberts name.

To recap the decision of Foley in a nutshell I lay out his reasons:-
1/ He said that by Robert giving his brother an indemnity for future debts etc, this gave RB a right to MB's half of the business. This even though no such legal indemnity was ever sighted, and it was said that it was reasonable to assume it was given. Evidence here, goes out of the door, as the IPo don't do evidence.
2/ RB was therefore entitled as registered owner to apply for the registration which was up for extension in 1999, to be extended.
3/ Adverts showed RB carried on business on his own from 1992 when the partnership broke up and right to present time. Completely ignoring the facts that from 1993 t0 1996 he was a bankrupt and not legally able to trade, that from 1996 to 2000 the companies that were used to trade with the name Viper, were not owned by him but his wife.
4/ There were no laws re bankruptcy which said that his asset of a trade mark application had to go to the Official Receivers. This even though I had several letters from various high up managers including the IPO & CEO, that said had the IPO known he was bankrupt they would have contacted the O.R over the application.

I put in my statement which held all my replies, to everything Foley had brought up in summing up his decision. I put in this document 14 pages and 21 paragraphs which all scrupulously dealt with only what Foley had spoken about. I showed the inconsistencies and the mistakes he made. I kept to only what Foley had dealt with and said.

After having put in this statement, I realised that one of the main planks of his reason to allow
RB to alter the registry, was over the business of his bankruptcy and the letter he had got from the Insolvency Service in 2007, which said they were not interested in the asset of the trade mark. Yet when I had asked them many times for information they had always told me they were unable to answer any questions as to what they believed or did in 1992, could not be answered as all the files had been destroyed due to age. Yet here they were, able to categorically say they were never interested in it. How did they know this with no files to look at? Yet here is Foley using this to say RB thus owned it.

I decided that I had to ask to be allowed to put in extra evidence and to ask the I.S questions and to get them to clear up why they sent this letter. I had only been given 28 days to get in my statement of appeal. I knew the I.S would take months to reply. I compiled another statement and argument, showing the replies I had got from the I.S and I believe they showed that this letter could not be relied on as credible evidence. I sent it in.

Professor Annands summing up and decision document is only 11 pages long and most of that is taken up with typical IPO waffle. Going over and repeating the story that we all know already:-
Page 1 deals with the Act that says an application for rectification can be made.
Page 2 ditto
Page 3 ditto then how RB applied and what he said.
Page 4 ditto
Page 5 what the registrar said in a letter to RB and his reply. How the IPO sent a letter to Martin Busbridge even though they did not know where he lived and just posted it to his supposed last address. How the registrar wrote to me.
Page 6 general comments on that letter and how I applied for an appeal. My application to apply to put in further evidence.
Page 7 At last a reference to the actual appeal hearing but only to what she thought of my extra evidence which was to trash it as it in her opinion had no effect on the appeal, even though it concerned one of the three planks of the reasons for the decision of Foley. That's the way the IPO work. She even states that Martin had no part in RB's bankruptcy. So what! as it was RB that was doing all the applications to keep the Trade Mark and it was Foley that brought up this for one of the reasons for his decision.
Page 8 She states my reason that I thought the H>O was wrong to allow the application because there was no evidence that Martin gave up his part of the business. Hurrah she actually agrees that I was right about my complaint the Foley had strayed into the other hearings instead of keeping to what he was only supposed to be dealing with. She then reverts to repeating what Foley had stated in his summing up
Page 9 ditto, She states my criticising Foley for making constant references to what Hobbs QC said in his hearing where he pontificates on law.
Page 10 ditto and Annand simply agrees that whatever Hobbs said, that was OK and that Foley referred to what he said was also OK. (One has to remember here that Hobbs was supposed to be dealing with an appeal against what Landau had decided. Which he ignored and instead pontificated on his vast knowledge and gave Busbridge endless free advice on how to stitch me up. All perfectly OK by IPO standards. To me it smacks of Hobbs is a big wheel in Intellectual Property and Annand is sucking up to him..... Fuck me, what do I matter. She then says I criticised the fact that there was no evidence for the alleged indemnity. Then she says that even that being so. that's OK according to according to same case law, which she does not elucidate us with.
Page 11 More waffle re what the Registrar has to look at when in 2007 RB applies for rectification. She says there was evidence that RB had continued to trade ( completely ignoring my evidence and statements about this alleged trading being all mostly smoke and mirrors and lies) How a letter was sent to a supposed address of Martin in Spain, etc. Then her CONCLUSION that my appeal is dismissed.

90% of all her document is waffle and going over what we already know as it is on the record.
My two statements to her re my appeal plus the accompanying documentary evidence to back up a lot of what I said, are all ignored. This even though 100% of what I talked about and dealt with, was all in reply to what Hearing Officer Foley had written in his summing up and decision.
Not to mention what evidence Busbridge had put into the original application and my statement and documentary evidence in reply to all that. Was all that bullshit to be ignored, because it was the basis on which the application case was based on.
Quite frankly it all smacks of a rush job where the outcome had been preordained, for the IPO know they can say anything and they know that, what the hell can I do about it. They probably guess that at the end of the day, what can I do about anything as they know I am penniless, to all intents and purposes.
Further on this line, I was surprised that during the short 3/4 hour so called hearing, Annand did not ask either myself or Busbridge any searching questions. I mean, I posed many questions as the the reasons Foley used, and to the evidence of Busbridge which he relied on. She should have cleared up my queries. So it all smacked of not a hearing to go into the questions as to the rightness of Foleys statements and really amounted to no more than a retrial of the application heard by Foley. She had her agenda and what went on at the Foley hearing was of no consequence. If she had said that the Foley hearing was flawed and his approach was all wrong
and she was going to start from scratch, that would have been more honest. However doing that would have meant I would then have wanted to put a fresh opposition statement in and I would have wanted Busbridge to do likewise.

One thing that Annand did say on page 6, para 12 shows me how her mind was working. She puts in what I think is a snide remark as to why did the Registrar send me a letter telling me of the "update". This was telling me that Busbridge was putting in for a rectification and. She remarks in words that are implicating that this appliaction was nothing to do with me as wasn't a party to those proceedings.. So why should the IPO be letting me know? She even says that my opposition to Busbridges original application to register the mark in 2004 had been decided in his favour and I had not appealed. She is implying that I should therefore mind my own business.
Well Madam, I had a big interest in what went on over Busbridges registration for I too have registration for the EXACT SAME MARK, and I had that on the basis of usage going further back than Busbridge. The IPO knew that I would be opposing anything he did to solidify his position, and that was my right to do so. I should NEVER have been in an ex parte situation where I could not openly see what was going on. The law says ANYONE can oppose his rectification application and as I say, I had good reason to do so. But it shows that her mind was made up on this whole story and it also shows her biased attitude towards me.

People like her in governmental positions annoy the hell out of me. None of them have ever run a business or a welkstall. They have no understanding of the "real World" the world of business and what i have been up against. I bet her attitude would be vastly different if she had had a business and had designed something, which was then stolen from her thus giving her the aggro I have had for 17 years.

However even poor people can if they try hard enough, get JUSTICE. It all depends on your tenacity. Plus today we have the power of the web.
At the end of the day this exercise was only held because before I can even apply for a Judicial Review of the whole sorry saga from day one, I have to show that I pursued it to the very end. It matters not to me whether the Trade Mark Viper is registered to Martin, Robert Busbridge or Mickey Mouse. What matters is that it was allowed to be registered to anyone else at all, when I by all laws, and MORALLY, had the rights to it going back to 1986. Full Stop!!!!!! It should never have been allowed to go ahead to a bankrupt, then after I had got registration, by proving use prior to the start of use by Busbridge, it should never, on the evidence heard before Reynolds, have been given to Busbridge. What Reynolds said in his decision was a travesty of justice, and it was compounded by the fact that under archaic rules of the 1938 Act, I would have to be a rich bastard to be able to afford to appeal it. In fact had I been rich I would never have lost that hearing in the first place., and that bastard Reynolds made it perfectly plain that he hated having to hear a hearing made by two non legal people. I guess he hated me the most, judging by his remarks, so made sure I lost. BRITISH JUSTICE.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!