LNC v Saliba – Page IDs is the 29 page transcript of the Wednesday, August 23, 2023 hearing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the Libertarian National Committee’s motion for a Preliminary Injunction in its Trademark usage case against several Libertarian Party members in Michigan. US District Court Judge Judith Levy granted the LNC’s request for a Preliminary Injunction and ruled from the bench that the activities of the defendant Michigan Libertarians did constitute commerce, and that the Lanham Act does protect the LNC’s Trademarked “Libertarian Party.”
PERVERSION OF INTER-STATE COMMERCE CL
TRADEMARK STUFF QUITE SEPARATE.
TRADEMARK OF EVERY DICTIONARY WORD – ADD *PARTY* AT END ???
AARDVARK PARTY – ZYGOTE PARTY ???
STATE PARTY NAMES QUITE SEPARATE – 10 AMDT
What the fuck are you babbling about now?
This is so dumb on so many levels. The Libertarian Party is the only Party in the U.S. that has a Trademark, and the arguments of the judge here look to grant that they all should.
And why not?
Whoever this “Chadderdon” is, the GOP and DEM have always exercised strict control over state affiliate leadership and even national delegates. This isn’t anything new.
Trademark for GOP organizations aren’t new: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3A9xhv9w.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=live&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=republican&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query
Not new for Democrats either: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3A9xhv9w.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=live&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=democratic&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query
Sorry, Nolan’s Duty, but you’re not quite right either. While groups have now and again filed for TM registrations for Dem, Rep, and other local units of parties over the years, TM law is not the mechanism by which the national parties exercise internal governance. National LP is unique in this regard, because they’ve used registered TMs and product licensing as a fundraising mechanism over the years and apparently require state leadership to enter contracts to license the use of their marks. By contrast, the other parties operate on the principal of “voluntary association”, and the resulting control of state parties is less effective than you might imagine. About the strongest formal penalty a national party can impose on a state party is to diminish or eliminate their delegates to national conventions and/or committee meetings (see, e.g., the present controversy with NH in the Dem nominating schedule). Those are purely internal party controversies, subject ultimately to political resolution, not judicial. Having served on a state executive committee and as a national delegate, it’s simply inaccurate to say there’s any national group with strict control over states and national delegates, particularly suggesting that such control is premised on a few random TM filings.
The LP (ironically, considering their platform) is the only one that doesn’t just rely on voluntary association but goes beyond that, relying on the state to let them register their name as property and then running to the community’s courthouse to plead for enforcement of those rights and their contracts with one another. They didn’t have to do it that way, but they did. It’s an effective mechanism for control from the top, which is apparently what the LP wanted, and from that perspective it’s working as designed.