The bizarre fight to trademark a movement.
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- Part One:
- • "They Use You and Abuse You"
- Part Two:
- • Don't Ask, Don't Tell
- Part Three:
- •The Tax-Dodging Moneyman
- Extra:
- • Who Owns the Tea Party?
In April 2009, Barry Cole attended the Tax Day Tea Partyin his hometown of Wichita, Kansas. An entrepreneur whose ventures include a company that calibrates police radar guns, he immediately "saw there's a potential market developing here." Within a week, he'd applied for a trademark (PDF) for the name "Teaparty Patriot" and arranged to sell T-shirts, flags, pins, license plates, and other gear on eBay and another website.
Eight months later, he got a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer representing Tea Party Patriots—a group that now claims to be one of the largest tea party groups in the country—who accused Cole of committing a trademark violation.
"I laughed," says Cole. "It was absurd. I filed for a Teaparty Patriot trademark three months before they did." After a year of legal wrangling—during which Tea Party Patriots failed to respond to numerous requests for documents—TPP abruptly dropped the matter (PDF) in late November. Cole, meanwhile, is still awaiting word on his "Teaparty Patriot" (no "s") trademark application. TPP, whose site also has a full line of swag including golf towels and cigars, is still seeking approval (PDF) to own the term "Tea Party Patriots."
See more at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/tea-party-patriots-merchandising-trademark
