A New Jersey Township Lawyer Goes After The Little Guy and Gets a Smackdown...
Just to let you know I went to Jake's website linked below and it's over bandwidth.
I'm sure it's being hit with a lot of views due to this Epic Story...
Average citizen Jake Freivald lives in West Orange, New Jersey and is the owner of the web domain, westorange.info.
It is a bare bones site that provides basic information about his town,
and there’s probably no chance in heck that anyone who would happen to
visit might confuse it with the official West Orange website that looks like this. Again, look at Jake’s website and then look at the township’s site and ask yourself if you’d ever think that the former could be confused with the latter.
Apparently
someone in the West Orange government believes that Jake’s website is
actually causing confusion, so the township’s attorney, Richard D.Trenk,
fired off a cease and desist to Jake with a bunch of fancy, big city
legal terms.
Here is the letter:
Dear Mr. Freivald:
I am the Township Attorney for
the Township of West Orange (“Township”). It has come to our attention
that, on or about May 13, 2013, you registered and began to use the
domain name “westorange.info” (the “Info Domain”). The Township
interprets this action as an effort by you to confuse and conflate the
Township’s official domain name and Web site with the Info Domain that
you maintain.
The use of the Township’s name is unauthorized and
is likely to cause confustion [sic], mistake or to deceive the public
and may be a violation of the Township’s federally protected rights. The
Info Domain falsely creates the impression that the Township is
associated or affiliated with the Info Domain. At a minimum, this action
has been taken with constructive knowledge of the Township’s name and
Web site, and constitutes bad faith use of the Info Domain.
Accordingly,
the Township demands that you cease and desist from use, ownership and
maintenance of the Info Domain. The Township further demands that,
within ten (10) days, the Info Domain be withdrawn from the current
registrar, and that you cease all current and future use of the Info
Domain, or anything else confusingly similar thereto.
The Township reserves all rights and remedies.
Please be guided accordingly.
Very truly yours,
Richard D. Trenk, Township Attorney
Scary Lawyer stuff right?
Now go read the response from Jake Freivald's Attorney Stephen Kaplitt:
Kaplitt's letter is hilarious! I will have to patiently wait to see Jake's website.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to add a Drink Alert to Kaplitt's letter, I started to snort a couple of times while reading it.
ReplyDeleteAs a Paralegal for 20 years, I love reading letters like Kaplitt's!
Would love to see if the Township Lawyer responds.
See,there ARE some good people in Jersey! We aren't all bad......
ReplyDeleteWhat's up Irish. Jersey is not where you want to be. See my last post about trash talk being banned in NJ High School sports. It will make your hair stand on end. Thinking of moving to NH. Where would you recommend and why? Fuck this state.
ReplyDeletePosted, .............;)
ReplyDeleteNow, that's going to leave a mark! When Trenk regains consciousness, will he realize that he got bitch-slapped into next week? Where did Trenk get his law degree? Out of a box of Cracker Jacks? He is obviously attempting to function above his pay grade and failing miserably ... sort of like Il Douche, yes?
ReplyDelete