Feds Target "Mongols" Biker Club's Intellectual Property

couchslug writes in with a Reuters account of a Federal raid on a California-based motorcycle club, the Mongols, on charges "ranging from murder and robbery to extortion, money laundering, gun trafficking and drug dealing." The interesting twist is that the authorities are asking the courts to seize the IP of the biker club — specifically, their trademarked name "Mongols." "Federal agents and police in seven states arrested more than 60 members of the Mongols motorcycle gang on Tuesday in a sweep that also targeted for the first time an outlaw group's 'intellectual property,' prosecutors said. The arrests cap a three-year undercover investigation in which US agents posed as gang members and their girlfriends to infiltrate the group, even submitting to polygraph tests administered by the bikers ... [T]he name 'Mongols,' which appears on the gang's arm patch insignia, was trademarked by the group. The indictment seeks a court order outlawing further use of the name, which would allow any police officer 'who sees a Mongol wearing this patch ... to stop that gang member and literally take the jacket right off his back' ..."

Not how trademarks work

[QuantumG]

I'm not aware of any law that can prevent a particular logo from appearing on a jacket.

This sounds like pipe dream bullshit.

easy fix

[heptapod]

Get tattoos of their logo/insignia. Get it someplace prominent and call out the cops to try and take it from them. I doubt law enforcement is going to start a collection of biker lampshades.

Re:Bullshit

[grahamd0]

Not that it's going to amount to anything - they will still use their name, and they'll likely call themselves "The Original Mongols..." or some such nonesense...

I doubt they'd even go that far to bow the will the courts. They'll probably just keep calling themselves the plain old Mongols, and if someone disagrees or misappropriates the name, they'll probably call themselves the guys who stabbed him to death.

What would really ruin them is for someone to use their logo and release a Mongols brand sugary breakfast cereal with pink, marshmallow motorcycles.

Re:Not how trademarks work

[Martin Blank]

I suspect that the first thing the DOJ would do, then, is to get a court order against all members of the Mongols pertaining to the use of the logo. Once the court order is there, they'd have potential reason to move on those seen wearing it.

Of course, this does nothing to stop the Mongols from simply using another insignia, one that does not directly reference the Mongol name. It would spread throughout the organization in weeks, if not days, and the whole exercise would lose its value.

Re:Let's examine the strategy

[NormalVisual]

(Cue a flood of cynical responses saying that the police would merely have to rebrand their existing product line.)

[cynicism] The police would merely have to rebrand their existing product line. [/cynicism]

Lets get real..stop them for a jacket?

[nsaspook]

I lived on the same block as the mogols Alhambra club in the 1970's. The cops wouldn't stop these guys from carrying a sawn-off shotgun down the middle of the sidewalk. In fact the cops would speed up and leave as fast as possible when ever they saw these guys. As long no one touched their bikes or women all was good.

Re:You seem to have hit the nail on the head

[Nixoloco]

It's really a bit frightening that so many people think the government can dictate what they are allowed to wear.

I guess they have more in common with those countries in the middle east where them terrorists live than they realize.

Re:Not how trademarks work

[Chrisq]

I think if the trademark belonged to a criminal biker gang (charged with murder and robbery to extortion, money laundering, gun trafficking and drug dealing) you would not have to worry about whether they would sue you in the civil or criminal courts.

Re:Not how trademarks work

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

So in trying desperately to distance itself from the Nazi legacy, the German government has effectively become a bunch of Nazis again.

There is broad support for these measures in the German public. It's not like "the government" had imposed an evil ban on those cute little Swastikas. Rather, it is commonly accepted that we need to limit free speech a tiny little bit to weed out the rot from a society that almost caused Europe to collapse barely 70 years ago.

In turn, these symbols have become so socially inacceptable that you can be sure anyone sporting them deserves a night in a cell, at the very least, in any case.

If true, following fact is amazing..

[tkjtkj]

Anyone who is old enough to have followed news reports about lifestyles within some 'rogue, biker gangs' will understand how outrageous is this excerpt from the article: "The arrests cap a three-year undercover investigation in which US agents posed as gang members and their girlfriends to infiltrate the group,.." Females inducted into certain such groups are expected to provide sexual favors to others. The initiation rituals published in publicly-available reports describe the sexual demands made of females in the group. To imagine that female law enforcement agents would involve themselves with such behaviours as part of investigative work is, frankly, horrendous. Even police 'anti-hooker' details do not go so far as that! .. and with good reason. If the article is true, what has happened to our sense of 'right and wrong' if this behaviour of female investigators is condoned??

You guys dont get it.

[Chicken04GTO]

I know you are all sheltered nerds and everything, but this isn't about IP, or any such silly thing. For a biker, his gang patch/colors is damn near sacrosanct. The cops know this, and by being able to just take it anytime they want, its a form of humiliation. It like taking a persons of faiths cross/hijab/torah whatever just because.

When I was younger and worked in fire/rescue, we were actually trained to NEVER take a bikers jacket off in an emergency without permission from the biker or if he was unconscious his friends. Yes, they were that rabid about it. This is about humiliation, and the cops rubbing salt in the wound, to let them know whose boss. For guys who value independence and strength, its a big deal. HUMILATION, not IP or law enforcement. I for one find this very disturbing. Since when is it the polices job to humiliate and degrade people because of their affiliations? Oh wait.

Re:Not how trademarks work

[Amouth]

that's what i'm thinking - if this even did allow it - a cop to stop a biker and take his colors right there.. i know one thing.. if i was a cop i wouldn't do it - no way in hell would i do that - that is just asking to get shot or stabbed or hunted down and killed after the fact.

no cop in their right mind will do that (sure there are alot that think they are superman but again they are alittle crazy)

i just see this as not ending well

Re:Not how trademarks work

[MikeBabcock]

Humiliating bikers is not something I would do with my spare time, personally. But best of luck to the officers involved -- I hope their covers were well-established.

Re:Let me get this straight.

[turgid]

Will you feel safer with the police distracted by symbols instead of watching out for real crimes? ... Land of the free, home of the brave ring a bell?

The very place where people get scared and offended if a crucifix is depicted upside-down or if they see a five-pointed star.

Others get violent if someone draws a picture of Mohamed. Some go mad if someone writes the word "god."

People are superstitious here in Blighty too. I'm more intimidated by the swastika since that has basis in historical fact. In other cultures it's just a good luck symbol.