Hello all,
As this is my first post I am sorry if I’ve got it wrong.
A search has been carried out and DOC and DDOC have not been registered/trademarked by any one.
We have the option of trademarking DOC in the UK or the EU (This would also cover the UK) the UK only registration should cost less than £1000 (much less if we have a club member familiar with the subject) and take about 6 months to do .
The EU registration should cost around £7000-£8000 and would probably need profesional help unless we have a member in the business as I understand that it is a fairly complicated process.
If we (the club) trademarked DOC then anyone who wanted to use DOC in the regions that it was registered would need the permission of the club.
Thats the basics as I understand them, your comments please on how we should proceed.
Colin.
‘Well done’ for finding all that out, and I think we should at least register the DOC GB as a trademark in the UK - if not the EU. The cost is somewhat excessive for a club / small business - anyone belong to the Federation of Small Businesses? They might be able to advise if we don’t have resources within the CoM.
[size=150]Well done, we should definitely register in the UK to protect our name. Would we register DOC and DOCGB?
EU registration would need more thinking about for that cost. Do we really need to register in the EU?
Guy[/size]
The name of the Club is the ‘Ducati Owners Club GB’ so that’s the one that should be registered surely?
Another consideration is also the difficulty of enforcing trademark protection over such a large area as Europe. I’m certainly no expert on this subject but I could envisage that any such legal action might be difficult and expensive and might not justify the expenditure. I think that registering in the UK would be a good idea though. Could we feasibly register DSC as a trademark? Just a thought 
Chris
[size=150]I think that may be what you call taking the piss a bit don’t you. Shall we do it![/size]
I think that the concern was that “DOC” would be taken over by the factory and we could loose our right to it.
How many times have you heard “I’m already a member, I joined the DOC”
We can register anything we like as long as no one else has done so already and we are willing to pay fo each registration, it is not an instant process, it can take around 6 months as things have to be published so that interested parties can comment.
If we go ahead and register “DOC” the factory may notice and object, we would need evidence of our right to use the mark and that we have been using “DOC” in the past.
Probably rules out registering DSC, they might notice!
Finally for now, I paid for a professional search to be carried out and can email the findings to those that would like to see them, not sure how to put them on here, otherwise will print them off for the next Com meeting.
Farmer.
I think that the immediate concern should be covering our name “Ducati Owners Club GB” if only to protect ourselves, then we can consider other options
exactly!!!
This may be a bit boring/tedious/long winded etc…
Following on from the last CoM meeting the process to register “Ducati Owners Club” as a trademark has been set in motion.
A search reveals just how little the factory has actually registered.
It would appear that there is nothing registered that would make our application a non starter.
From discussion with the company dealing with the application it may be a good idea to register the words as they appear on the club logo, in other words register the club logo.
A fundamental that we need to agree on is the areas of use that we want to protect the trademark, for example, on clothing, printed matter, spare parts, foodstuffs, beverages etc etc…
It is a complicated procedure and the company that I am dealing with will keep me informed as the application progresses(and the costs build up) so that we can pull the plug if it gets to expensive.
I will post on here as I get information and would appreciate quick responses so that the application can proceed with a concensus rather than me having to decide.
During the process, the application is advertised and anyone can object, the period for objections is two months but this can be extended to three months by simply registering an intention to object (told you it is complicated).
I personally think that the factory will object, if it does then we will need to show historical evidence of our entitlement to the trademark, it is at this point that the cost will go up as collating and submitting the evidence takes time so it may pay to give this some thought should this situation arrise.
Just to look on the bright side, upon sucessfull registration of the trademark a thid party can still challenge it at any time in the future!
regards,
Colin.
Go for it, we need to protect our name and we can prove historical use.
[size=150]I think we should go for it.
Guy[/size]
Just to update everyone, we need to give a little thought to why we are going to register the trademark, is it to prevent anyone else from using it?
If we try to register “Ducati Owners Club” I think Ducati will go off on one. They could simply object to us using the word “Ducati” as it is registered to them!
Linda at Bison River ltd who is looking at this for us is fairly certain that Ducati will object to our application so before we set off on a path of great expense I think we should pause and consider.
Further more the use of national flags in a trademark is not allowed if it could be “misleading or is offensive” not likely to be a problem for us.
If we are producing items carrying our trademark then Ducati would not want it to appear that they are Ducati sanctioned.
Colin.
[size=150]Yes, it sounds like we need to go into this further, we could end up shooting ourselve in the foot![/size]
There was an ‘interesting’ letter, written by David Harvey (a past DOC GB Secretary), in the IMOC mag in 1992 (I think) saying that IMOC couldn’t use the name ‘Ducati Owners’ in their mag!!! I think you can imgine the responses to that …
I’ve also sent an email thread to the CoM from Ducati Bologna about the use of the ‘DOC’ phrase - please note the dates on that too!! 
Nothing changes … 
While all this has been going on I’ve been doing a little bit of research myself, which reveals that the following website url’s have already been registered:
ducatiownersclub.com
ducatiownersclub.co.uk
ducaticlub.com
ducaticlub.co.uk
ducaticlubgb.com
ducaticlubgb.co.uk
The following are still available
ducatiownersclub.org
ducatiownersclub.net
ducaticlubgb.net
ducaticlubgb.org
It transpires that at least a couple of those registered have been set up by a disaffected DSC member who just wanted to make sure CB didn’t get hold of them. I have been in correspondence, and will provide a few more details at the AGM.
Cheers
By CB do you mean Conan the Barbarian?