Trademark Outlaws

By Mark Kaufman

Scary story out of Los Angeles, regarding trademark law and outlaw biker gangs. The U.S. Attorney’s office in LA, has handed down indictments for members of the Mongols motorcycle gang for a whole host of infractions, including assault, fraud, robbery and murder. Nothing new there, however it seems that the U.S. Attorney is also attempting to strip the Mongols of their legally registered trademark. What I don’t know about trademark law can literally fill an entire law library, but this does seem like an overreach of intellectual property law, and at the very least a slippery slope. If they are saying that indictments for unlawful acts also constitute a reason to strip an organization of intellectual property, wouldn’t the government also be able to strip corporate criminals such as AIG, Halliburton, Martha Stewart and Exxon of their trademarks? Of course motorcycle gangs are violent, of course they should be prosecuted for their crimes, but this is ridiculous.