{"id":10394,"date":"2016-02-07T07:54:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T12:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=10394"},"modified":"2016-02-07T07:56:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-07T12:56:14","slug":"10394","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=10394","title":{"rendered":"RICHARD SMITH VS. THE SAILING WORLD"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I copied this from sailing anarchy. Someone appears to have done a careful SEO search.<\/h2>\n

master and servant<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

\"master\"<\/a>From \u2018strange tales of sailing and the law\u2019 comes this nugget; it seems a guy named Richard Smith has defeated the America\u2019s Cup and its legendarily aggressive intellectual property subsidiary, ACPI, and Smith now claims he now owns the trademark on the following words:<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s Cup Masters, America\u2019s Cup Legends, AC Masters, AC Legends, Classic America\u2019s Cup, America\u2019s Cup Classics, Historic America\u2019s Cup, America\u2019s Cup Heritage, Heritage America\u2019s Cup, International America\u2019s Cup Class Masters, International America\u2019s Cup Class Legends, IACC Masters, IACC Legends, America\u2019s Cup Class Masters, America\u2019s Cup Class Legends, ACC Masters, ACC Legends, J Class Masters, J Class Legends, 12 Metre Masters, 12 Metre Legends, 12 Meter Masters, 12 Meter Legends, Twelve Metre Masters, Twelve Metre Legends, Twelve Meter Masters, Twelve Meter Legends, Universal Rule Masters, Universal Rule Legends, History of the America\u2019s Cup, America\u2019s Cup History and America\u2019s Cup Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

ACPI is best known to us as the company that used threats and intimidation to ban the Little America\u2019s Cup from using its own name; a name that had been used for decades before any America\u2019s Cup holder started enforcing it\u2019s claimed rights to the words.\u00a0 Our analysis showed us that it was likely America\u2019s Cup\u2019s Trademark claims were far weaker than they seemed to believe, and we encouraged someone to stand up to bullying by the AC admins, or alternatively we called for the AC to back down and try to help preserve sailing history and the name of a great event, but they ignored all pleas for logic, in favor of greed and exclusivity.<\/p>\n

And at least according to one guy, intellectual property law seems to have caught up with the nasty folks at ACPI, even though it seems to have happened very quietly.\u00a0 From the \u2018news\u2019 section of\u00a0AmericasCupMasters.com last March:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTrademark agents instructed by Sam Hollis, legal counsel for America\u2019s Cup and CEO of America\u2019s Cup Properties Incorporated, have conceded that America\u2019s Cup Properties Incorporated and the America\u2019s Cup Event Authority do not own any intellectual property in America\u2019s Cup Masters.\u00a0 A spokesman for the owners of America\u2019s Cup Masters said today:\u201cWe are delighted that the absurdly hostile attempt to take control of the America\u2019s Cup Masters intellectual property by lawyers acting on behalf of America\u2019s Cup Properties and America\u2019s Cup Event Authority has collapsed.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A quick\u00a0look at TESS<\/a>\u00a0didn\u2019t find any trademarks registered under America\u2019s Cup Masters in the US, but the mere fact that Smith\u2019s site hasn\u2019t been nuked off the internet indicates that the thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers working for Ellison\u2019s mob didn\u2019t have a case.\u00a0 More importantly, it indicates that\u00a0they may not have a case against anyone, especially the Little America\u2019s Cup guys. \u00a0<\/em>The silence in this case further suggests that Mr. Smith may have agreed to keep quiet about it for the time being, perhaps to prevent appeals or other legal-fee churns, or he may just be British\u2026we\u2019re not sure.\u00a0 But Smith is definitely not going away, using his newfound mastery over the ACPI folks to begin promoting a series of regattas for (we think) 12 metre yachts, or perhaps Tom Ehman\u2019s Super 12s?\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say, really, though those interested should\u00a0browse the Masters site for news her<\/a>e.<\/p>\n

The Super 12 link could be very interesting given the intellectual property conversation, especially if the link between Smith and Ehman is something more than coincidence; Ehman worked for ACPI for years enforcing America\u2019s Cup trademark rights against dozens of potential infringers\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I copied this from sailing anarchy. Someone appears to have done a careful SEO search. master and servant From \u2018strange tales of sailing and the law\u2019 comes this nugget; it seems a guy named Richard Smith has defeated the America\u2019s Cup and its legendarily aggressive intellectual property subsidiary, ACPI, and Smith now claims he now … Continue reading RICHARD SMITH VS. THE SAILING WORLD<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2503,2735,2736],"class_list":["post-10394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sailing","tag-seo","tag-trademark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10396,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10394\/revisions\/10396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}