So I'm getting threatened with yet another frivilous lawsuit (and once again, it really has nothing to do with me). Here's the start of a letter I (well, “Ms.” me anyway) got via courier:
Basically their complaint is that in some fantasy story on Eunuch.org someone talks about sticking a Bardex™ catheter up their ass, therby risking “misuse” and “potential injury” when other people try and stick catheters in their butt as well (so they say). Aparently their catheters are safe for urethras, but not for rectums. Or something like that… They asked me to “revise the story to refer to an enema nozzle or other non-infringing phrase”.
First, it's not my site and not my problem.
Second, if someone wants to shove a Bardex up their ass, it's cool by me. If Bardex wants to be sure everyone knows it's a registered trademark of C. R. Bard, Inc., I figure it's fair to let folks know, but I'm not in the business of censoring sites that I provide hosting for… Anyway, here was my response:
Subject: Bardex trademark useI received a letter (FedEx) from you today regarding online use of the BARDEX trademark in erotic stories.
I should point out that you are writing to the wrong person. While I do provide hosting services for many sites, I am not the webmaster or owner of the site in question (eunuch.org) nor am I aware of the identity of the author of the story you're concerned about (other than the name and email that you've forwarded to me of course) that involves customers of your client's enjoying your client's products in a way perhaps more pleasurable than your client had intended.
My advice would be that when you want to get in touch with the owner of a website that you use the contact information on that website. Contacting registrants usually just puts you in touch with an ISP who has no control over matters such as this.
Other than that, if you'd like to send me a suitable press release on the erotic uses of your client's products I'd be happy to post it on my own web site.
Shannon
The letter was actually couried by UPS. I hope they pick up on that because I thought it was funny in terms of tradename usage. And yeah, I know… Baiting lawyers is a real bad idea, but it's oh so fun.
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