Trademark Terrorism: Hotel Chain Sends Cease and Desist Letter to 1,000-Year-Old Village for Using its Own Name

In one of the most embarrassing cases I’ve ever seen of corporate overreach, Copthorne Hotels sent a cease and desist letter to a village that has used its name for almost a millennium, claiming the tiny hamlet of 5,000 was infringing on its trademark. I wish I was making this up.

TechDirt covered this story and explained that:

Techdirt has covered its fair share of idiotic legal threats over trademarks, but the following example is spectacular even for a field that has many superb examples of corporate bullying. It concerns the village of Copthorne (population 5,000), in the English county of West Sussex. It’s rather well established: it’s been around for a thousand years, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book, which was compiled in 1086. Recently, though, its village association was threatened with legal action for using the name ‘Copthorne’ on its Web site.

Now here’s the actual letter, courtesy of the Plymouth Herald:

Dear Website Owner,

We act on behalf of our affiliate, Millennium & Copthorne International Limited (Company Registration No: 199600354R), a company incorporated in Singapore with its principal place of business at 390 Havelock Road, #02-01 King’s Centre, Singapore 169662 (“MCIL”).

MCIL holds the registrations of a number of well-known trademarks in the hospitality industry, including, inter alia, the “Millennium” and “Copthorne” brands. As you no doubt are aware, these trademarks, among others, are used to identify, advertise and promote products and services provided by Millennium Hotels & Resorts and, as such, have developed substantial goodwill and reputation around the world.

It has come to our attention that you have registered, without MCIL’s permission or authorization, the domain name [copthornevillage.org], which includes a protected trademark of MCIL. This unauthorized use of MCIL’s intellectual property falsely suggests MCIL’s association with or endorsement of your website and is likely to cause confusion in the minds of the public that the website is associated with or connected to MCIL and the products and services offered by Millennium Hotels & Resorts. As a result, substantial damage is likely to occur to the goodwill and reputation of these trademarks.

We require that you immediately disable all content hosted at copthornevillage.org and allow the domain name to expire. Please confirm by return that you have done so within five (5) working days of the date of this letter.

MCIL reserves all rights to take any further action to protect its intellectual property. 

Fortunately, this saga ended the right way. We learn that:

The association panicked and removed its website and informed the Copthorne Fairway Infant School and the local stores of the threat.

It then replied with a strongly-worded letter pointing out the village has existed for more than 900 years and was mentioned in the Domesday Book that was completed in 1086.

The brand protection team emailed the group on Monday last week apologising for any inconvenience and said it was sent in error and the association quickly its website.

Millennium and Copthorne communications advisor Peter Krijgsman said: “I can now confirm the ‘cease and desist’ letter sent to the Copthorne Village Association was sent in error in the course of an exercise carried out by Mark Monitor, a brand monitoring/protection agency.

“Mark Monitor will be contacting the administrator of the Copthorne Village Association website to explain this and to apologise for any inconvenience.”

You can expect a lot more of this if the Trans-Pacific Partnership gets through Congress with its ISDS system and the intentional erosion of national and local sovereignty. As noted recently in the post, Meet Cyber P3 – The U.S. Military’s Public-Private Partnership to Create Corporate/Government “Cyber Soldiers”:

Another example of a public-private screw job is the current push to “fast track” the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP. While it’s marketed as a free trade deal to appeal to the ignorant masses, at its core is a voluntary ceding of government sovereignty to the interests of multi-national corporations via the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system. The Washington Post covered this last month and described ISDSs as:

ISDS, or Investor-State Dispute Settlement, is the international system whereby multinational corporations (MNCs) can sue the governments of countries in which they invest for violating their property rights. International treaties give MNCs access to ISDS, under which ad hoc international tribunals decide whether or not an MNC deserves compensation. There is no appeals system in place.

This isn’t about free trade, it is about protecting multi-national corporations from changes made down the road by governments after the plebs realize how completely sold out they have been. Moreover, you know something is truly evil when there is a complete media blackout on the topic.

Prepare to submit to your corporate-statist overlords:

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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