Small business owner, trademark owner, being harassed on Facebook; Clients seeing it

[instantassistnt]

Good Afternoon,

I hold the trademark to an often immitated name in my field. I have successfully defended this trademark against cancellation with the help of a very good intellectual property attorney.

If you are familiar with trademarks, you know it is up to the owner to police people using the mark. I do so on a regular basis on the popular social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). I have had the accounts of MANY people using my name removed or disabled.

Unfortunately, I found 2 more on Tuesday and Facebook removed both within 24 hours (they are wonderful to work with, much better than Twitter!). One of the infringers has no idea what IP law is and has enlisted the help of 2 of their cronies post false, slanderous, libelous comments on each and every post on my business' Facebook page. Actually, it appears that they have nothing else to do with the intensity and frequency of these posts.

The sad thing is that my clients are seeing this. There are even threats (none physical) included. I have saved each to a document so I have a "paper trail". My IP attorney has suggested contacting a libel attorney in their state, which I may do.

Is there any advice you can give me for not only what to do next (a cease and desist letter is being sent to them, but I want to address and stop this barrage of slander. My husband wants me to make a police report, but I am hesitant as they have more pressing crimes to deal with.

Your advice is truly appreciated!

Thank you!

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I'm very sorry to hear about your social network problem. I also do agree with you that Facebook seems generally more responsive than Twitter with regard to legal issues. This is probably because of sheer volume, as Facebook concerns so many different legal issues on a regular basis and tends to deal with the personal issues you describe by the nature of having extensive profiles for their social networking site.

You're not going to want to hear this but I'm sure you've heard it before. While you can contact a libel attorney, you'll probably have to shell out a lot more money than you realize just to be able to get to the point where you can obtain compensation for the damages. Cease and desist letters should be sent but they don't really do much except to notify the recipient officially and hopefully scare them into realizing that there may be serious consequences to their actions. What I've found more effective is to have your attorneys send notices directly to Facebook that cite specific terms of use violations. In the event that the libel is crude or conduct that is unbecoming, Facebook will probably suspend the user's account. What might be effective if you want to avoid a personal backlash (where users then create fake accounts solely to continue to harass you) would be to include this message in your cease and desist letters so that these users know that their accounts will be subject to suspension or termination. Should you want to go one step further, complaints to their ISP (assuming this can be determined and it is difficult on third party sites such as social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the like) could result in their service being terminated as well.

Unfortunately there isn't a good answer to social media problems using the law. Frequently those who have a great deal of time on their hands are typically judgment proof. There won't be enough money left after your judgment to make the entire effort worthwhile.

With regard to reporting these people to the police, they will almost certainly not get involved unless you are clearly threatened and are in fear of danger. For example, if one of these posters write that you're a lying SOB and that you're a miserable person, etc. then the police don't consider this a police matter (criminal in nature) but a civil matter. Should they include threats of violence you may wish to file a police report, even if little is done about it as a result of the process that is required and the fact that the perpetrator may be ultimately outside of their jurisdiction.

I wish you the best of luck with this problem and thank you for sharing your very detailed and well crafted post which contains good knowledge about trademark law and protection of a trademark.