I wanted to express my total surprise about my recent, apparent trademark infringement. eBay notified me that one of my listings was removed due to trademark infringement:

“NATO ® is a licensed, registered trademark of International Watchman, Inc”

I have to say I’m shocked! I cannot believe the word NATO is trademarked. I suppose I’ll have to relist as “nato-style”.

 

Heavily discussed here.

 

I’ll search it. First time I’ve become aware of it - don’t know what you don’t know. Who would’ve thought...

 

I have been taking the piss out of NATO man for a while as seen in this post here

and here is a good link about it

https://www.mwrforum.net/forums/showthread.php?82014-F***-International-Watchman


And it’s only the US so being a Australian website you can say NATO as much as you want here.....

 

NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO NATO

 

Yes

 

That took commitment! I can only get SNORKEL out about a dozen times before my fingers hurt.

Oh- and I think I should trademark SNORKEL.

 

Well - at least it looks like Watching Time is still chipping away at canceling this TM: https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92067341&pty=CAN&eno=49
Has been at it since 2017. Good luck to 'em.

 

I’m sure those legal challenges would ultimately work if several sellers were to band together against him or if anyone of them has the wherewithal to fight to the end of the process.

but as discussed in the long MWR threads, he is smart and isn’t taking on or threatening Chanel or Omega who are also using the word.

What’s important to note though is that he only took a trademark covering the US.

Eddie Platts, the owner of Timefactors and of the forum TZ-UK is the owner of the trademark in Europe.
sellers in Europe can use it.

 

This is as stupid as and akin to Subway's (failed) attempt at trademarking "footlong". Smh.

 

Call it what it is, a G10 strap. More accurate than "NATO" anyways.

 

Oh, but he ALSO has G10 TM’d.

 

OK, that's just evil.

I'm surprised UPSTO let him get away with it.

 

Ironically, Subway was sued for the “footlong” sandwiches actually being short of a foot. Subway settled cheaply but probably would have won the case.

 

I think the way the USPTO works for this stuff is they do some "light investigation" which is mostly checking the existing registrations and (today, anyway) some google searches. In the old days it was probably Lexis/Nexis. If they don't find much of anything, they grant the TM. The idea being that if they miss something because it's too obscure, a lawsuit will bring that out.
That's my guess, anyway. Because if you think NATO is bad, you should read this one:

http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:a5o2m2.5.7

 

This link doesn't work (yay, TESS).

 

Well...I guess I'm not surprised. It's serial# 78395209

https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn78395209&docId=APP20040406120040#docIndex=5&page=1

 

Well... notice that he is not suing people that can crush him on a lawsuit over the name.

he only attacks small people.