13 replies to this topic

[reconbob]

It seems more and more people are offering to engrave the Thompson bullet logo on
a receiver. My initial understanding of this was that "Auto-Ordnance" and the Thompson
bullet logo were "owned" by West Hurley and, I assume, transferred to Kahr. One reason
for me thinking this is that back in the 1980's the West Hurley AOC came after me full power
with lawyers, letters, and threats when I advertised the shooting guns we were then
making. We did not use the bullet logo, but they would not even allow the use of the word
"Thompson" in our ads.
Now today, I hear more and more that neither West Hurley nor Kahr after them ever
purchased the rights to anything, and are using the name and the trademark without the
consent of the owner.
I have also heard a story that at one time WH attempted to enforce their
alledged trademark "rights" but could not in any way document that they had in fact,
obtained those rights.
If anyone knows the answer to this it will be you guys here on this board....

Bob Bower/Philly O

[railroader]

Code Buttons

Believe me, there has been a great deal of discussion on this matter in recent posts. Wether you can get a difinitive answer or not remains to be seen, and I'll leave that to the more knoweledgable guys on this forum. The only thing I know about the trademark is, it is not a bullet, it is an arrowhead. Good luck.

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

reconbob,

This bone of contention has been exhaustively discussed on this board. I refer you to the following threads for your consideration:

http://www.machinegu...5769&hl=replica

http://www.machinegu...6067&hl=replica

QUOTE

Regarding the bullet trademark, if a company registers a trademark, it is theirs forever. They never have to reregister it. If they stop using it or allow others to use it without their permission and without protest, they loose it to the public domain. In the case of the Thompson bullet trademark, that is exactly what happened. It became public domain. Many people started using it on their replicas including me. Now for someone to re-register the trademark, it must be claimed that no one else was using it or it becomes a fraudulent registration application. Numrich did not claim they were using it on the Thompson Submachine Gun . (Wouldn�t that have tipped off the Trademark Office researcher!) Instead they put it on an M1911 .45 pistol until it passed the Trademark Office. That is something to look into. If Numrich Arms had purchased Auto-Ordnance, they would also own the trademark and would not have had to reregister it, just as you said. By reregistering the trademark, Numrich admitted that they did not own the original Auto-Ordnance Corp. On July 25, 1984, the West Hurley corporation applied for the "THOMPSON" trademark related to machine guns and such. That trademark was granted on September 17, 1985. The Serial No. is 73491525 and the Reg. No. is 1360435. If the West Hurley Corp. had been an assignee of the original and a LEGITIMATE successor in interest, they would not have needed to apply for this otherwise abandoned trademark in 1984

THOMPSON TECHNICAL
by Douglas W. Richardson

[Merry Ploughboy]

reconbob,

I urge you to check with a competent intellectual property law attorney. No offense to Mr. Richardson, but to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Richardson is not an attorney. Therefore, he is not able to provide legal opinions, only his personal opinion which may or may not be a correct statement of the law.

MHO, YMMV, etc.

Best of luck.

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

Merry Ploughboy,

The point that DR made was that not until 1985 did Trast legally obtain the rights to the Thompson name and Trademark. That is why Kahr currently owns it. Numrich never had the rights to the Auto Ordnance Corporation name.

The reason why DR continues to manufacture his receivers with full Thompson markings without any impediment from Kahr ( or Trast), maybe because his receivers are not functioning firearms.

ATF recently upgraded their C&R list to include all .45 smg Thompson type receivers. Since neither Numrich or Trast had nailed down the names, logos, patents until 1985, the all inclusive heading makes perfect sense, legal, historical, semantic, and otherwise.

Edited by Arthur Fliegenheimer, 16 September 2008 - 06:42 PM.

[railroader]

Arthur

You should know this. Is the logo a bullet, or is it an arrow head?

[colt21a]

it was taken from the choktaw tribe around 1913, then implemented into the now famous bullet logo design...the first auto ord.co.{bullet logo} was much neater.....taken from max sage around 1910...he was gunned down in tombstone around may 1895...shot with a gov.owned prototype mauser snellfirer.now in the gov.warehouse collection under holy grail......crated and wrapped.never to be seen again...

google it!!wink!

ya read it here first...ya gotta believe. take care,ron

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

It has always been referred to as a bullet logo as far I know.

[TD.]

Arthur - Would you cite the volume of Thompson Technical and page number of the Richardson reference you posted. Thanks.

Merry Ploughboy - excellent advice. Without question, Doug is an excellent machinist. However, when a lay person starts making assumptions on legal matters...

[full auto 45]

QUOTE (colt21a @ Mar 11 2006, 06:19 PM)

it was taken from the choktaw tribe around 1913

And I always thought it was the *Hekawwe's Tribe.





* F-Troop- 1965

[John Jr]

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

Strange. Seeing your ritual go to cut and paste, I had the exact same reaction.

[John Jr]

Wierd...

[Bisley45]

The owner of Philly Ordince said Khar's laywers sent him a nasty (lawsuit) letter and told him to siese and desist using the bullet trade mark. Don't know if that is becouse Richardson was using a public domain immage before they regestered it onto their pistols or if Mr. Richardson refuses to be intimidated.

Personaly I think the moonies are just intimidating others becouse they can't seem to get the quality control issue that W/H screwed up under control. Course I'm no lawyer and don't have any visible assets to be threatened being a backwoods redneck who makes gun and tractor parts.

BB