This is an astonishing story about a disabled veteran/information studies grad husband-and-wife team in Florida who set up a noncommercial website called "Virtual Office Team." Robert Half International, a California company, sicced its New York lawyers on the poor couple, who have $100 in the bank and live on VA benefits. Robert Half International asserts a trademark on OFFICETEAM, and their lawyers want the couple to cough up $10,000 and forswear their use of the phrase "Office Team," or they will seek a farcically gigantic judgement against them in a New York court, which the couple cannot afford to set foot in.
And it turns out that Robert Half International has made a racket out of this. A single mom in Texas who registered virtualgalfriday.com is also being shaken down for thousands by the same white-shoe aggro lawyers on behalf of the same carpetbagging clients.
IP law is out of control, that much is clear. Intellectual Property suits have become a kind of meteor strike, a random event can that interrupt your daily round by punching a flaming hole through your roof and striking you dead where you stand.
(via Lessig)
