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.

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.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 18.

Of course it was a foregone conclusion that I would mount an appeal against the perverse decision by Hearing Officer Foley, last year. The reasoning he used to allow the rectification of the Trade Mark Registry to amend their records and show that Robert Busbridge owned the Trade Mark Viper, was flawed in a number of areas.
Firstly saying that a bankrupt person need not lose an application made to register a T/M is perverse, especially when you have their own CEO saying they would. Secondly saying that in a partnership that breaks up, the partner that continues with the business would automatically be said to have legitimately taken over the other partners 50% share of the assets, merely by allegedly giving a indemnity against any future problems, even though no such legal document exists to prove that took place, is also perverse. So here we go again in this 17 year fiasco of incompetence and snail like progress that you can only get with British civil servants, thus forcing me into another legal fight.
This time it will be an appeal by me in front of what they call "An appointed person" who is supposed to be independent, but who in reality, really is a servant (indirectly) of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) I have a 6th April date in front of a Professor of Law at a university, who takes such appeals. I do not have much faith that they will be truly independent. QC Hobbs who heard the appeal by Busbridge in 2007 turns out to be a big wheel with the IPO and used by them all the time, and this was shown in this case, when I got the transcripts of that hearing. It was just a biased hearing which turned out to be no more than a "free advice session" to advise Busbridge on how to stuff me up and get round his legal problems and the decsions that went against him. In my case this person happens to be a woman. So we shall see, but I am not holding my breath.
To get a Judicial Review you have to exhaust all avenues to get your justice, and after this appeal I will have done that. So then it will be a matter of trying to find a lawyer who will take my case on, as in this wonderful country of ours where only the criminals and immigrants get unlimited free legal aid, white indigenous Brits like me who are not criminals, can go fuck ourselves. Only the rich get justice as they can afford it. On top of this, lawyers these days are only interested in heaps of dosh and people being able to access to justice, is a foreign field to them. Will I be able to find an enlightened lawyer.........place your bets now!!

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 17.

After much pushing the Intellectual Property Office had to come up with a decision on the application Busbridge made to rectify their records. Normally a Hearing Officer will come up with a decision within two months and this time it has taken the current one (a Mr Foley) 11 months.....I wonder why? In total it has taken the IPO a total of 1year and 11 months from the time Busbridge applied to appeal the decision of HO Landau who found for me, to issuing this decision. It is my opinion that the IPO has deliberately and cynically held up proceedings in the hope I would in the meantime kick the bucket. Them knowing that I had had a heart attack in 2002 and the possibility is that I could have another one. That way they get a thorn in their side, out of the way. They know full well that I want to get a full Judicial Review of the whole case going back to 1992, and looking into all their cases of continual maladministration. they know that before I can even apply for a J.R I have to exhaust every avenue of complaint through the IPO. So by getting their own Hearing Officer to issue yet another perverse decision in favour of Busbridge, means I have to waste even more time appealing it. So that is exactly what they have done.

Having employees of their own look, at applications and appeals, is the same of the Police, the solicitors, barristers, judges, doctors and dentists etc all regulating themselves. We all know what a fantastic biased job they all do....don't we?

I will not relate in full what the decision said otherwise you will all fall asleep as it's very long. Long on waffle and obscure ramblings which make it look like he's doing a full and thorough job.
Which of course he isn't. In short Busbridge was applying to be able to say the following:- Back in 1992 he and his brother applied to register my trademark Viper, this as a partnership trading as Cobretti Engineering. Less than a year later the partnership broke up because Martin Busbridge had applied for a loan for the business, and due to his brothers uselessness, it was all wasted in quick order and Martin was up for losing his house. His marriage fell apart and he rowed with his brother Bob over it all and he did a runner never to be seen again.
Shortly after this in 1993, Bob goes bankrupt. So we have here the fact that the application (to register) should be now out of date. The business Cobretti Engineering was defunct and Bob was a bankrupt and the application was for an asset (the trading mark) could not be owned by him. He did not do anything to change the wording of the application at that time. He and his brother had in early 1992 approached Chrysler posing as the bona fide owners of the mark, to sell it to them for between £500,000 and a £million. So of course Bob hid this fact from the Insolvency Service (IS) and they being as useless as the IPO never even had a meeting with Bob it was all just a paper exercise, as bankruptcies in 1992 were running as high as now (it being the last recession we had) so my complaint with the IPO, if you have read all of this blog you will know, is that they, even though I told them of the bankruptcy back in 1994/5, did buggerall, and have gone on doing buggerall about it despite my continually banging on about it ever since.
I also had a go at the IS in 1994/5 about the hiding of the asset and they did nowt as well. (TYPICAL OF ALL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS, DON'T YOU THINK?)
When Landau came up with his decision saying that as Bob never got Martin to sell him his 50% of the business, he never owned it all, so the application was never his to forward onto registration. Plus his bankruptcy meant that the asset of the mark would belong to the I.S. So in effect Busbridge had to lose the registration of my Mark,which he had conned the IPO in 2004  (the Reyolds Hearing) into giving him. So he appealed this, and off we went on another round of time wasting.
Back in 1992 when Bob knew he was heading for bankruptcy and he says he started a new company which he called Autotrak Ltd. He says he assigned all the assets of Cobretti Engineering to that company, but he still continued trading as Cobretti Engineering upto to his bankruptcy in 1993, thus hoodwinking the public that they owned all the assets, but which he now had hidden. This of course is illegal, to knowingly shift assets out of a business that is trading without any hope of avoiding bankruptcy. (the I.S. did not cotton onto that one) The assignment was kept quiet for obvious reasons and it wasn't until 2002 that he then notified the IPO that he had allegedly done it. I firmly believe that an assignment was never made in 1992 and he only went through the motions of belatedly doing it 10 years later, on legal advice as he just had to show the IPO that at the time he made the application or soon after, the mark was assigned to Autotrak Ltd, and wasn't with Cobretti Engineering.
Of course I protested very loudly about all this and pointed out that IPO law said that they had to be notified within 6 months of any assignment and that wasn't obviously done, plus all the paperwork was very suspicious and not legal. This was at the hearing where Busbridge was applying to register the mark and this back in 2004. H/O Reynolds said the assignments would have to be looked at and Landau when he did this, did not touch on the assignments, because as he said the application had to fail on the breakup of the partnership and other facts.
So Busbridge appealed his decision but only on the business of the alleged assignment, and his appeal would be heard by an 'appointed person' who turned out to be a prominent QC, and not to the High Court. (as I would have been forced to do-over appealing the application to register hearing by Reynolds). This really annoys me because I had to let the appeal go and lose the case to Busbridge just because I could not afford to go to the High Court, yet Busbridge makes an appeal to do with the same case, or a continuation of it and he has a later (after 1994) rule applied to him which means he can use the free option of seeing an appointed person and not a normal IPO Hearing Officer, who I found out later is employed by the Government Legal Department.
After waiting about 8 month, that meeting with this QC took place. Again because of stupid IPO rules I was refused to be part of that process, yet it was to do with a case that I was involved in...can you believe this? What a cosy little meeting that turned out to be and I wasn't at all confident it would go my way. I expected to get the decision of it in about two months-yet month after month went by and no decision. I kept on to the IPO and all I got was that it was before an 'independent person' (not in their employment) and they had no say in the matter. I even got my MP (Chris Chope) onto it after 9 months of waiting and he got the same brush off from no less than the IPO CEO. This all happened at the end of 2007/ beginning 2008.
I heard from the IPO in January that Busbridge was now putting in an application to 'rectify the register' and have it recorded that the application should now read that it is in the name only of Bob Busbridge trading as Cobretti Engineering. This of course flew in the face of Landaus decision which had never been activated due to the appeal. The appeal decision had not been heard either, as in May 2008 I am told that back in September 2007 Busbridge had dropped his appeal to the QC and to me this should have meant that the Landau decision should now have been enacted. But the IPO would ignore all that which is outrageous. Even more outrageous was the fact that all this meant that the IPO had deliberately lied to me and my MP by saying the decision had not been made and nothing they could do, yet it had been dropped all the time!!!
THIS SHOWS ONCE AGAIN WHAT THE IPO ARE ALL ABOUT AND NOT ONLY THAT -THE FACT THAT BUSBRIDGE WAS EVEN ALLOWED TO APPEAL THE LANDAU DECISION GOES ABSOLUTELY AGAINST ALL THE LEGAL RULES-IF ONE CAN APPEAL A LEGAL DECISION OF A COURT. THE RULES ARE THAT TO BE ABLE TO OBTAIN AN APPEAL YOU HAVE TO SHOW THAT YOU HAVE NEW EVIDENCE THAT SHOWS THE ORIGINAL DECISION. LIKE NEW WITNESSES HAVE COME FOWARD WITH NEW EVIDENCE THAT WOULD SHOW THE DECISION WAS WRONG OR THAT THE JUDGE IN THE HEARING MADE LEGAL MISTAKES OR EVEN FELL ASLEEP IN THAT HEARING OR WHATEVER. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT JUST SAY "I DON'T LIKE THE DECISION AND I WANT IT HEARD AGAIN" YET THE IPO GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO APPEAL AND IF YOU READ BUSBRIDGES WRITTEN REASONS AS TO WHY HE SHOULD BE GIVEN AN APPEAL.....THEY ARE A NONSENSE . WHY DID THE IPO IGNORE THE RULE AND GIVE HIM AN APPEAL?????  AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED THE IPO HAD AN AGENDA TO STOP ME FROM EVER KEEPING MY TRADE MARK FOR ALL THE EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT THIS MUST BE THE CASE AS THERE CANNOT BE ANY OTHER REASON FOE ALL THE CORRUPT ACTS THEY CARRIED IN FROM DAY ONE TO THE END.

Busbridges application to rectify made in Jan 2007 was eventually heard in July 2008 and I have been waiting again ever since for the decision. One reason for this long hold up, was the incredible and I believe illegal decision to grant over six months for Busbridge to FIND HIS LONG LOST BROTHER, MARTIN!!! This so he could persuade him 16 years after the event, to grant him 100% of a defunct partnership and thus allow the rectification process to go ahead. Of course it would get rid of Landaus reasons for not allowing the registration of the mark to continue. I find this so outrageous and possibly illegal that it can only have been allowed by the IPO as they favour Busbridge winning so they can be proved to have acted properly over the bankruptcy etc etc. Also to make it so I had lost. All this strengthens my desire to have a Judicial Review of all the goings on by the IPO. Of course he would never be able to find his brother and even if he did I doubted he would ever get him to agree.
Lets face it the break up was monumentally done with bad blood, and Martin had never been seen or heard of in 16 years being abroad most of this time, yet the IPO gave him all this time at my expense. Of course he did not find him or get his 50% of the partnership and application to register. So the application had to be now looked at. I had given all my reasons as to why it should be denied and I had my say about all the documents Busbridge had put in as so called evidence.

I had to keep on to the IPO yet again over a slow decision coming forth and eventually after all this pressure as now they could not use the excuse that it was an independent QC, they came up with it last week. Well I never expected them to find for me, and true enough they didn't. Yet again a deeply flawed decision full of mistakes about the facts and the reading of the evidence that Busbridge came up with. So now I have to waste yet more time in appealing this and I have quickly drawn up the appeal with a long statement and documentary evidence.

The decision in a nutshell was on only two points. 1/ Because when the partnership of the Busbridges broke up and they drew up an agreement saying that Bob would take responsibility for all the debts, THIS ALSO MEANT THAT MARTIN WAS HANDING OVER THE BUSINESS TO HIS BROTHER AS WELL AND SO NO NEED FOR IT TO BE ASSIGNED OR SOLD.

 2/ On the business of the bankruptcy even though by law the Receiver should have taken over that asset, because Bubsridge came up with a letter from the Insolvency Service dated only in August 2008 in which they said they had had no interest in the asset, this meant that he was in the clear over all that. This is again an outrageous decision and shows a biased favouritism by the IPO towards Busbridge, as I showed that this letter was not worth a light and not legal.

First it was never proved that the asset had been assigned away from Cobretti and when I asked the Insolvency Service first in 2004 and again in 2007 to let me have all the facts about the bankruptcy, they replied that they had destroyed all the files and could make no comments either way as they simply could not remember. (That in itself stinks and can it be true??) Yet after this and for Busbridge, they can suddenly remember with remarkable clarity that they had not been interested in the mark asset. It is painfully obvious that the I.S are as big a bunch of liars and cheats as the IPO and who know their handling of the bankruptcy was deeply flawed and they want shut of it. So here I am still some way off getting Justice which I wonder if I will ever get. Will I be able to get a Judicial Review on legal aid???
Certainly no barrister if they have read this blog has offered to help, but as I've said that does not surprise me at all as they seem to only want fistfuls of money to even look at you let alone speak to you.

One last thing is that the decison of this last H.O, Foley, shows that the cosy meeting between Busbridge and HOBBS QC, was probably not legal either. It is clear the QC Hobbs gave Busbridge so much legal advice as to how he could take steps to win, by dropping his appeal and applying for rectification and saying and showing certain facts and documents. This when he should have stuck ONLY to hearing Busbridges reasons as to the legality of the assignment. As it was, all he seems to have done is discussed with him all sorts of other matters and the assignment was not dealt with. He obviously advised Busbridge to drop the appeal and take the other steps he did. Surely this is illegal as well. Hence why it is imperative I get a Judicial Review into all these shonky goings on from 1992 to date.

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 16.

7th Oct.2008.

I decided I had had enough of them holding me up so decided to send in to their general enquiries an email just asking them how long would one normally expect to have to wait for a hearing officer to come up with his decision. I never told them my name. They came back with what I THOUGHT THEY WOULD SAY, NAMELY AROUND TWO MONTHS! This because the previous two decisions both took only two months.

So now I went back to Raoul Colombo the manager of the Law Section and reminded them that it was now 6 MONTHS since the hearing and I was beginning to wonder if there was something underhanded going on with the Patent Office, taking this long. This got them going and after continually telling me he couldn't do anything, now he promised a result by mid October.

However knowing the way the P.O works, by not keeping to their own laws and rules, I am not holding my breath as to what the final decision is going to be. As far as I am concerned it is a quite simple situation. He appealed the original hearing decision saying he had no right to the trademark and giving all the legal reasons, and his appeal reasons were dropped and he changed tack and asked for the records of the original application to be allowed to be changed. (this after
16 years) He wanted the original application in the name of the defunct partnership to be changed to just his name. How he can have this allowed I do not know as the previous hearing officer clearly said that as the partnership collapsed, and he did not have his brothers permission to take over his half of the business and it's assets, and that as he had gone bankrupt anyway, so the application was therefore dead. SO HOW CAN THE RECORDS BE CHANGED? especially 16 years later.

I bet the PO will concoct some excuse as I doubt if they want it to be seen that they have ignored my protestations about all this for 16 plus years, and never did anything. So they need to restore my non existent faith in them.

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 15.

Yesterday I sent an email to the P.O asking why it was taking their hearing officer, so long to come to his conclusion. To remind you Busbridge appealed against the decision of the last Hearing Officer, Landau, that he had had no right to apply to register the Trade Mark Viper. He quoted many legal reasons for coming to that concusion.
Busbridge appealed but dropped the appeal and then tried a different tack to nullify that decision. It did not work, and so now this hearing officer should complete his report. However I am constantly wondering, what has he got to think about? The previous H/O made his decision, the appeal was dropped, so inevitably the decision then HAS TO STAND!! So what the hell has he got to spend FOUR MONTHS thinking about?? But then the P.O is like that. EVERYTHING TAKES FOREVER.
I wonder if they are up to something, maybe marking time until a time limit is up, or something like that? I don't trust them, for if this guy confirms the last decision it makes the P.O look incompetent as why didn't they come to that decision in 1992/3? The decision of the first H/O
took two months and it's been four now, so watch this space.

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 14.

Whilst I wait for the snail IPO to come up with a decision on a decision, if they ever do, a thought crossed my mind.

The brainless Hearing Officer, Reynolds, at my opposition to Busbridge registering the Mark said I had lost the rights to the Mark by not keeping control of the advertising of same. (at around 1991) Now even if he was right about that, and you have read my thoughts on that, I feel some questions aught to be asked:-

1/ Why did he not recommend that my own registration be squashed?
2/ If that was the case why did the IPO in 2002 allow me registration?
3/ If that were the case why did Chryslers expensive and learned lawyers who knew what my trading history had been,(don't forget their hearing was held in 1998, well after 1991, and who had Busbridge advising them on everything that he and I were doing trade wise) not apply for my registration to be declared Invalid?
4/ If that were the case why did the IPO allow Busbridge to have registration, thus create
a situation where two individuals having the very same Mark for the very same category, and products? Which I beleive is in contravention of their own laws?

It is all another example of the baffling and inconsistent way the IPO work.

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 13.

Before I cover the decision of the alleged assignments, I have to mention what was going on with the never ending farce of the Invalidity action. From mid 2004 to the decision at the last quarter of 2005, Busbridge continued with his futile action of trying every trick in the book to admit as much damning accusations against me, of a personal nature. Of course due to the absolutely convoluted and snail like way the IPO conducts all its business, everything takes an age and is incredibly complicated. Whilst I have no sympathy with Busbridge as he took this path because of his vexatious litigant ways, it is the same with all British so called Justice. As far as I am concerned British Justice is deliberately made more difficult, slow and overcomplicated, so that all the twats in it can make a nice cosy living out of it. All the lawyers make millions out of it because most of it cannot be understood by mere mortals. The longer it drones on the more money they make out of it. If the paths down which you are forced to go, resemble a labyrinth, then again they will take ages to get along and that equals more money again. It just makes people like me livid and extremely "Raging Mad". Others are more apathetic and supine and let them get away with it.
About October/November 2005 the decision was eventually made known. I must say that this was the only time I ever felt really vindicated, in all the time from 1992. The official who made the decision (he was a hearing officer but thankfully not Reynolds) was a fellow called Landau. God Bless his cotton socks.
What he had to say in one way, as I said, vindicated everything I had ever said, about this whole sorry saga. But in another way I have to say that what he did say should have been said right back in about 1994, or earlier and he could have said much more than he did. For what he said was this:-
1/ The original application to register was made in the name of Robert and Martin Busbridge (a partnership) trading as Cobretti Engineering.

2/ The partnership broke up and what should have happened LEGALLY, is that if Bob Busbridge wanted to continue the business, he should have got his brother to sign over his half of of the business. This never happened and I know that Martin probably would have died first rather than do it.
3/ So any alleged assignment could not have taken place as was claimed as it was done only by Bob, and not the two.
4/ The company went bankrupt so no Trade Mark could be awarded to it.

These were things I had said ad infinitum to the IPO ONLY TO OBVIOUSLY-BE IGNORED !!!!

So in effect Busbridge now was stuffed and all I had demanded over the years was now being said to be right all along. Don't they make you mad? Why couldn't the IPO HAVE HAD A MEETING WHEN I BROUGHT UP THESE POINTS IN 1993/4 AND COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSIONS? They would have saved me a great deal of trouble, money and time. My business would have prospered and no doubt I would not have suffered a heart attack. I would have ended up at retirement with enough saved to have a decent retirement instead of what I have now. Frankly I could go to Cardiff and **** all the ****** in the IPO to Kingdom come. Now you would think all my troubles were going to be over, wouldn't you? But we are dealing here with stupid incompetent civil servants and their mindless never ending bureaucracy AND A GROWING REALISATION THAT THERE WAS A LOT MORE TO ALL THIS THAN MET THE EYE!! WHY WERE THEY OBVIOUSLY OUT TO STUFF ME AND WHICH WAY THEY COULD ???

Of course the British Establishment has to show everyone how fair it is to everyone, so the PO just had to show this lying, cheating piece of robbing shit called Busbridge, a chance to appeal that decision.
Now this does as usual not happen anytime soon. Busbridge can get to appeal, not by having to go to the High Court like I did with his registration opposition loss, no because the decision was made in 2005, even though it concerned what was done in a case held under the 1938 Act. How do you square that with logic and common decency and thought for JUSTICE????? I wanted to appeal that original registration opposition decision and I wanted to do that in 2004!! Yet they did not say to me "well OK Mr Cook as it is 2004 you can do that cheaply through the IPO, using an independent QC" Which is what Busbridge was allowed to do with his appeal as he'd now put in to appeal the Landau decision that found for me.There simply is no Justice and when I complained I just get brushed off. He was able to say to the IPO - I want my appeal to be heard, not by an IPO hearing officer but by what they call an 'Independent             lawyer who is put forward to hear this appeal by the Government Legal Department - and get this-or they came up with a QC called Hobbs. I later found out that he was the countries foremost IP lawyer in the land and heard all the IPO's top hearings that involved many of the coutries biggest companies when they were spending millions to protect their valuable Trade Marks and Copyrights. YOU HAVE TO ASK-WHY IT WAS THAT BUSBRIDGE GOT THIS TOP MAN, WHO IN NO WAY COULD BE SAID TO BE INDEPENDENT OF THE IPO AND DECISIONS AGAINST THEIR FINDINGS THAT WERE BEING APPEALED. IT SIMPLY STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN AND YOU WILL SEE WHY WHEN YOU SEE THE TRANSCRIPT OF THAT HEARING AND ALL THAT WENT ON BEFORE THE HEARING AND AFTER IT. IF EVER THERE WAS AN OUTRIGHT CORRUPT ACTION BY A GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT.....THIS IS IT !!!!!!!!! AND IT CONCERNS A TOPIC THAT IS ABSOLUTELY OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE TO ALL PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WHO PRODUCE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY APPERTAINING TO PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING THAT IS DESIGNED AND PRODUCED BY BRITISH INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIES SMALL & LARGE. .....most people in this country haven't a clue about 'Intellectual Property'-including by the looks of it- many journalists who should know better !

HENCE WHY ANYONE LOOKING AT THIS CASE SHOULD REALISE THE IMPORTANCE OF WHAT WENT ON IN IT. FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO ME COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE IN THE FUTURE AND IN ANYCASE COULD ALSO HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED TO OTHERS I PAST YEARS............YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO USE YOUR VERY BEST IMAGINATION TO ENABLE YOU TO SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES IN THIS STORY !!!!!!!!!!!                    

The hearing of that appeal was heard late 2005, and I was not allowed to be present. even thoughit was about my Trade Mark and someone trying to steal it. More petty fogging injustice. I never got to hear what was said or anything. The outcome was that Busbridge was said to me after it was heard, to have dropped his appeal, by dropping his appeal about the assignments. It looked suspiciously like this QC and he had a good old chat, Busbridge puts on his severely hard done by, little boy who is so good, he wouldn't say boo to a goose act, and gets free advice to apply now for 'an adjustment' to the records and to now change the IPO records to show that the application name (for his registration of my Trade Mark) was changed to just Bob Busbridge applying for Registration" Can you believe it? Well of course you can in this country were justice always seems to come second to giving in to all the cockroaches and crims. You will see later on what Busbridges brother who dusddenyly appeared on the scene for don't forget Robert Busbridges business was as a partnership with his brother and the IPO knew this but are quite happy to airbrush him out of existence even after one of their hearing officers had said all this should not happen.....he was probably sacked for going against what the IPO obviously wanted to happen.

Now the really annoying thing is that after the hearing with the QC, I had to wait for nearly two years to even find out what was went on. THE CORRUPTION JUST KEEPS ROLLING ON NON STOP SO KEEP READING. I kept emailing the PO as to what the hell was going on after that hearing finished. All I got back was shoulder shrugging and "well it is out of our hands as we cannot dictate to a QC what to do" Thanks a bunch you useless *****, and who made up these rules in the first place? Why didn't you think about that? Even my MP- Chope couldn't get an answer, but he did eventually get one off their CEO and it was a pack of lies. What was said turned out to be more lies and you can see further on what the lies were.

I had had enough of all this by now, and I thought I would have another go at reporting the IPO to the Ombudsman. I knew they would do nothing, but a lot of new complaints were now in the arena, especially their CEO lying. I put a full report in.......have a guess how I got on !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes your right.....I got F***ing nowhere again. I will not go into detail here, detailing every point they made as again-it was all LIES and I have the documents all in full-all about this However I wasn't going to have it with this pushing aside of my complaints, so I appealed to them and listed 12 complaints on how they failed to deal with my original points, so I quote their reply:-(after a full page of meaningless waffle)
1/ They had no grounds in which they could investigate the IPO. (Even though I gave them all the evidence and within that there is are all the grounds-so they chose to ignore it all.
2/ "We can in principle investigate complaints about administration actions of the IPO. We investigate in cases where a complainant has suffered because they received a poor service or were not treated properly or fairly and the PO had not put things right and we believe that an investigation by us would resolve matters. While I appreciate your strength of feeling, I can see no evidence that an investigation would resolve matters" (Can you belive all that? For I suffered from all they quote but it shows how determined they all were to stop me from getting Justice....covil servants all covering up for each other !!!
I do not know about you but all those lies and deceit just make me want to be sick. This because of the never ending complaints I had to make to the IPO over 16 years and none of them rectified. How their original ignoring of my complaints over bankruptcy etc led to much hardship and loss of money by me, how I had shown how unfairly I had been treated at every turn. Of course they can see no reason to investigate, because they do not want to see anything.
3/ They then go and say that they cannot investigate matters were the complainant can appeal.
Of course it matters not one jot that the appeal they are talking about is a High Court appeal. Now I did not complain about the decision of the hearing officer re the opposition to Busbridge application to register.(I couldn't afford to) I complained that we should never have got to that stage. So those remarks are a cynical ploy to muddy the waters. order to make that appeal? But in this case it had nothing to do with my complaints. So another blot on the so called justice system we have to suffer.Even so how can one have a right to appeal if one has to be rich in order to amke an appeal in the first place?????

Back to the waiting for what was happening to the appeal, by Busbridge, I heard in about March 2008 that Busbridge had in November 2007, decided to drop the appeal and concentrate on getting the records changed. (as advised by Hobbs!!) An abuse of the system if there ever was. However my first complaint was why did the IPO at around that time not tell me he had dropped the appeal?? Why did they tell my MP (Chope) through their CEO that they did not know, nor could they find out what was happening. When all along of course they knew. (Because at that appeal was their chief Hearing Officer alongside his mate Hobbs !!!!!) They even had given the bastard Busbridge three months to come up with evidence to back up his application, and this included having to find his brother and to get out of him a statement saying he gave up his rights to the mark and the business. I do not know about you, but this is just horrific. The IPO is now saying that they are willing to ignore the findings and decision of their own hearing officer Landau as to the legalities that were not adhered to by Busbridge back in 1992/3. Now 16 years later they would bend over backwards and allow this lying, cheating and manipulating toerag to just like that, change history and the books. All he had to do was ask to change the records and put himself as being the applicant of that original registration application. If you read the decision of Landau he clearly states that he can come to no other decision, as the law was the law, and that's that. His hands are tied. Yet now the IPO apparently seem to think they can ignore all that. I feel sick just thinking about it.
So I am once more in the never ending roller coaster of Busbridge submitting statements full of lies and irrelevant crap and my having to make counter statements to refute what he says-ALL THE TIME.
They even show their bias by after three months, to give him another six months to find his brother. Of course he doesn't find him and will probably will never find him as he has been out of his brothers life since 1993 and I am absolutely sure that the break up was so bad he just has never wanted to see him again. (but hold on here as he does come to me in 2009 to be my witness) For all I know he may dislike his brother even more than I do, and that says a lot, doesn't it.
So Busbridge doesn't get his statement. He plows on regardless, filling up ages and pages of irrelevant waffle. Cutting through all his shit, it basically comes down to the following:-

1/ After he went bankrupt he carried on trading even so, and always used the Mark and he always called his company Cobretti. He supplies endless copies of adverts over years and none of them show he used the trading name of Cobretti Engineering (this is important as he is trying to say there is a Status Quo situation here)
2/ I point out that when he says that he hasn't dropped his appeal, so that means the case must revert to the original decision to strip him of the Mark, he is lying as I have it in writing from the IPO CEO. He still says he hasn't dropped it.
3/ He lies when he states he has used the Cobretti Engineering trading name extensively right through to present date. Trouble is none of his adverts show this but the IPO chose to ignore this fact.

I obviously replied knocking down each and every lying assertion he made. I cannot believe that the PO would believe all the feeble efforts he has made to lie his way through this, yet here I am six months after his last statement and mine, still waiting for the constipated IPO to make a decision.
I wrote to the Head of their Law Section? a Mr Colombo ( a very apt name) but he's not a patch on the real one. Probably has his hands tied. I complained about Busbridge making perjurous statements about him dropping his appeal. A letter was sent in April telling him that he had dropped the appeal.....end of story. The application to rectify the register was being heard by a hearing officer. (That was 9th April, here we are at the 21st June not far off three months later and still no word from IPO) Willing to take bets as to what they will say at the end game???? Keep reading.

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 12.

I turned up at a building just off the Embankment at around 10am for this hearing that I had waited for for some two years. Of course His Highness the King of Lies of Sutton, was there with one of his henchmen. A Copper ( my favourite species of worm) who certainly worked for him whilst I was using him as an agent. Certainly he would have been in on Busbridges scam of ripping me off. I wondered why he was there as he would not be allowed to be part of anything. Maybe Busbridge was scared I would give him the hiding he deserves.
The hearing got under way under the directions of this hearing officer Reynolds. Can't say I liked the look of him as he seemed a miserable git. My instincts were right. The hearing took all day, and as I have no minutes of it I cannot give you a blow by blow account. I can give you the outlines and they are this:- I cannot remember if Busbridge kicked off with his verbal account or I did. It doesn't matter as we both went through what we wanted to say about our respective evidence that we had both put in. The evidence consists of a number of statements you make, they are replied to and you then make yet another statement covering what the reply said. This goes on until you both run out of stuff to say. These statements have documentary evidence alongside them, to back up what you have said.
I obviously outlined the history of my usage of the Mark from day one. How I had taken Busbridge on and what he had done to me regarding the stealing my business.. I referred to many parts of the 1994 Trade Marks Act to back up any assertions I had made as to laws that Busbridge had not kept to. I pointed out the many lies he had told, how his words could not be relied on, how he had traded dishonestly and so on. I stressed about the illegality of the alleged assignments, how I should not even be fighting this case as the PO should have thrown it out when they knew he had become a bankrupt, how the application had been made in the name of a partnership and trading name that did not even exist now.
He obviously trotted out all his lies about how I never owned the Mark anyway as the Limited Companies I owned had owned it (no evidence given to back this) and how I had stolen customers money when BRL ceased (again no evidence) and so on. All the usual guff and lies he had used before with the Chrysler action and all his statements made at the forgery case etc etc.

I think he cross examined me, and I certainly cross examined him, but I cannot go over any particular subject the cross examining covered, as all my case notes are not with me right at this moment. So I cannot remember what all the subjects and details in depth were. But they were things I thought was very important to discuss and get across.. I sensed all along that this hearing officer was pro Busbridge, who did his usual little boy lost act, and anti me the hard headed business like, no nonsense person. ( I know that many Brits guys do not like my type of personality. This I put down to the fact that many Brits blokes are wets, spineless, bleeding heart Liberals and soft as shit) This is especially so amongst the so called elite of Brit life. Those in the so called professions. But I say it is because of these bleeding useless twats that Britain has fallen so far down during my lifetime, so that I no longer am proud to be British. Of course most of the politicians and civil servants fall into this useless category. This hearing officer fell into the category of useless ***** that I hate and here I was not being judged on the truth of what I had said and shown in documentary evidence but on how this bugger saw me as a person. I of the type he obviously did not like, (isn't it funny that the Judge in the forgery case behaved just like this hearing officer and I ad the same feelings?) and indeed that is how he came to the decision he did as you will see. He made comments to me that were so obviously out of irritation, yet he was as nice a pie to Busbridge, and when I got to the stage that I wanted to go back to taking up a subject with Busbridge, he refused to allow me to do it. Therefore denying me the right to conduct my case the way I needed to. What was his excuse for doing this.....he said the case had gone on for much longer that would be normal for such a case, and that only one day had been set aside for it, it was getting on (it was about 4pm) and he had to wrap things up so he could get away and get his train. I could have killed the little useless *****, but what could I do. If I spoke out I would seriously get up his nose, even more than I may have already done. This is so called British Justice!! and this was my business life, indeed my whole life, he was messing with.

I was not hopeful really, but I thought "How can I lose as the case Busbridge put forward was so weak and full of holes" When I got the decision I was absolutely gob smacked as his reasoning was so biased, muddled, and defied logic or sense. I HAD LOST and this meant that Busbridge would be able to register the Mark, eventually. For the PO in all its glory in past years had decided that under the 1938 Act if one lost a hearing, the only way you could make an appeal was to go to the HIGH COURT. Now this was no sweat for a big company like Chrysler, but for any small business or a one man band like me, that was TOTALLY OUT AS WHO CAN AFFORD MANY TENS OF THOUSANDS TO DO THAT???? So I had to let it go as I could in no way appeal. It really irks me to think of Busbridge and all his celebrations he would have made that night. Plus his gloating.
Reynolds reasoning that I should lose was this:- I had abandoned the Mark at the point were I took on Busbridge as an agent. As I had let him advertise the Mark Viper that meant I had abandoned it. (this when the FACTS are that only I advertised the Viper car up to 1990 and he was said in those adverts to be my London agent) and after when I allowed Busbridge to advertise the kits and car  it was stated that he was my agent. This is another example of how incompetent the IPO were or was it an example of how they were so determined to get me and finish me and my business off, that they would make up lies like this to achieve my demise? Quite how he came to this statement I will never know. In his World, if Ford who manufacture cars, let dealers sell them and thus advertise them in all sorts of ways, this means the dealers own the Mark and not Ford (or any other big manufacturer). He point blank refused to believe me when I told him of the cars I was making for the London guy, the export of one car in 1991 to Holland, ( All the cars I ever made had manufacturers plates attached to their bulkheads clearly stating Classic Replicas was the manufacturer and boldly stating VIPER...Chassis Number etc) the Cobra parts I advertised and sold, the advertising I did for fully built cars, the orders I got from Busbridge for kits where the orders stated for a 'Viper' kit and so on. As far as he was concerned Busbridge was just able to take over, just like that, my Mark. What a travesty of Justice. I believe if I had had the money to take on a top IP lawyer, he would have been able to wipe the floor of this perverse judgement.
There was however a glimmer of hope, for at least he had listened to my assertions about the alleged assignments. He decreed that there should be a separate hearing to decide on them and their legality. He also decreed that the Mark could only go to the company Cobretti Engineering,
and the partnership of R & B Busbridge. Well he couldn't decree otherwise could he? This because it was they who applied in the first place. Well I think this just shows up what stupid bastards all these people in the IPO are. How can you award a Mark to a defunct and bankrupted entity, one that ceased 12 years prior???????????? They all live in cloud cuckoo land as far as I am concerned. ANOTHER CASE OF USELESS INCOMPETENT CIVIL SERVANTS!!!!!!!!!!!

Intellectual Property Office-How they aided a crook. 11.

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.