: Re: Free Zone Association: Legal Alert

Re: Free Zone Association: Legal Alert
From: Old Timer  <oldtimer@cts.com>
Subject: Re: Free Zone Association: Legal Alert
Date: 1997/08/15
Message-ID:  <3.0.32.19970815120429.00683d64@king.cts.com>
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.232.34.1
Organization: Art Matrix - Lightlink
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

 


Recently the RTC has taken a renewed interest and is currently making
legal threats concerning the Free Zone Association's website;
http://www.scientologie.de. The following time track shows the sequence of
events: 

Early 1995- The Free Zone Association purchased the exclusive rights to a
book written by Dr. Anastasius Nordenholz with the title
"Scientologie-Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des
Wissens" (Scientology-Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of
Knowledge"). This book was published in 1934 in Germany (and later
worldwide), long before the organization of Scientology had been founded.
 
Feb. 6, 1996- The Free Zone Association announced the opening of it's
homepage using the domain name scientologie.org in which a few chapters of
the book were made available. 

June 1996- Church of Scientology lawyers complained first to Homer Wilson
Smith, (our host for the homepage) and then to the USA InterNIC, claiming 
they held the trademark for the words scientology and scientologie. At no 
time during this period did the Free Zone Association receive word from the 
Church or any of it's legal representatives.

August 1996- The lawyer for the Free Zone Association sent Ms. Nichols of 
the USA InterNIC the following letter. Please note: This is the FZA stance 
concerning the trademark of the word Scientologie.

Internet Domain scientologie.org"

Dear Ms. Nichols,

My client, the Free Zone Association, in Germany registered as Freie
Zone e.V.", is not willing to accept the claims of the Religious
Technology Center.

The Association hereby bases its decision on its own trademark claims
which I will explain as follows:

In the year 1934, long before the organization of Scientology
had been founded, a book written by Dr. Anastasius Nordenholz with the
title "Scientologie -Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der
Tauglichkeit des Wissens" (Scientology - Science of the Constitution and
Usefuness of Knowledge") had been published in Germany (and later 
worldwide). 

In 1995, my client purchased the exclusive rights to this book. I will
send you a copy of this contract, if needed. 

My client republished the above mentioned book and, amongst other
things, made some chapters of it available on the Internet under the
domain name "scientologie.org".

According to German Law, my client receives trademark protection under
paragraph 5 (3) of the German Markengesetz (trademark law) in which the
following is literally stated:

First in German: 

(1) "Als geschaeftliche Bezeichnungen werden Unternehmerkennzeichen und
Werktitel geschuetzt".
(2) ...
(3) "Werktitel sind die Namen oder besonderen Bezeichnungen von
Druckschriften, Filmwerken, Tonwerken, Buehnenwerken oder sonstigen
vergleichbaren Werken".

Translation in English:

(1) "Business Marks and titles of works are protected as business
terms".
(2) ...
(3) "Titles of works are the names of special designations of written
works, film works, sound works, stage works and other comparable works."

According to this law, my clients protection of a title is equal to the
right of an official registration of a trademark, as the book since 1934
is published in different languages worldwide and is therefore already
more than well-known in interested circles (reference: paragraph 4 (3)
German Trade Mark Law).

Furthermore, the name "Scientologie" is neither registered by the
Religious Technology Center in Germany nor otherwise protected and, due
to the older rights, my client would be in a position to enforce an
injunction claim against the Religious Technology Center (reference:
paragraph 4 (13) German Trade Mark Law).

And even if my client would not be entitled to these rights, the
Religious Technology Center would not be allowed to appeal to the name
"Scientologie" any longer. According to German Law (reference: paragraph
25 German Trade Mark Law), the right of assertion of a trademark is
invalid if this right has not been used seriously within the last 5
years. The Religious Technology Center and the Organization of
Scientology in Germany has used only the term "Scientology" for a
long time. They replaced the name "Scientologie" (wherever used in
german translations) by the term "Scientology" more than 5 years ago.
For this reason only, my client has, for the time being, refused
the assertion of his own claims.

Sincerely
Michael Voltz
Lawyer


Sept 1996- InterNIC placed the scientologie.org domain name on "hold".

Sept 1996- The Free Zone Association changed the domain name from
sceintology.org to scientologie.de and reopened the homepage.

Nov 29, 1996- Bernd Leubeck (President of the Free Zone Association) and
the adminisitive contact for the homepage received the following fax from 
the German law firm of Boehmert and Boehmert which has been roughly 
translated. Please note: The following fax is the first direct Church 
related contact made to Bernd and the FZA.

BOEHMERT & BOEHMERT

29.11.1996

Your Internet Address "Scientologie.de"

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are writing you on behalve of the RTC, LA, USA and the Church of
Scientology International (CSI) who we are continously representing in
the subject of Trademark.

As you know our clients opposed already against your originally used
internet address "Scientologie.org". You gave up this address in the
meantime as far as we could see.

Our client recently recognized that in the meantime you changed to the
address "Scientologie.de", sticking to the original contents. While this
homepage claims to just represent the book Scientologie, Wissenschaft
von der Beschaffenheit und Tauglichkeit des Wissens, written by Dr. A.
Nordenholz your primary goal obviously is to publicly relate your
association "Freie Zone e.V." to the Scientology-Church and especially
to appear as an "official" member church of CSI, which for sure is not
the case.

If it would have been your only purpose to just introduce the above
named book, you could have done it within your own - separately existing
- Free Zone Assoc. home page. There is no reason visible why you
introduced a seperate internet address for the named book, exept that
you intend to address people who are interested in Services from CSI.

As you know without doubt the name Scientology is comprehensively
protected as well as a name and as a trademark. Any unauthorized
commercial use of this Name is a legal infringement. Beside numerous
other registrations we only refer to the registered mark 1 157 987
SCIENTOLOGY, attached as a copy.

We also want to put your attention to the fact that unauthorized use of
registered trademarks within the internet was recently legally
acknowledged as a trademark violation. We refer to a decision of the
County Court of Mannheim in the subject 7 0 69/96 - "Computerrecht"
6/1996.

In the name of our clients we urge you to give up your internet address
"Scientologie.de" and the relating "Scientologie"- home page immediately
and to acknowledge this latest until the 12.12.1996.

In case you don't comply within the given time we advise our clients to
immediately proceed with further legal steps.

Sincerely
Kuntze

\-----------------

Our answer - a week later (on official letter head of the Free Zone
Assoc.):

Re. Internet address "Scientologie.de"

Dear Mr. Kuntze,

We received your fax of 29.11.96. Based on this we state the following:

We didn't give up the internet address "Scientologie.org". We also won't
give up the internet address "Scientologie.de".

We cannot follow the claims you made concerning a mix up (in German
"Verwechselungsgefahr" - the liability of a subject being mixed up with
another) with your clients. No rights of your clients were violated by
the book title "Scientologie".

With kind regards,

Luebeck (President), Kern (Vice-President)

June 23, 1997- Homer Wilson Smith received a phone call from a fellow
identifying himself as David James Tubb (sp?) of Talon Tech International
714 434-7476. He said he was hired by Allan Cartwright of the CoS to look
into the scientologie.org domain name. He said his partner was an ex
CIA/NSA operative. He said that instead of snooping around, he thought he
would just start calling people to see if he could get a straight story.

Homer, gave him the story he was looking for including Nordenholz, the
book, the*de domain name and how to contact Bernd Leubeck in Germany, which
Mr. Tubb did not do.

August 6, 1997-Homer Wilson Smith received the following letter from CoS
attorney Thomas Small. Please note: To date, Bernd Leubeck has not received
any communication concerning these recent events.

                                       
 Small Larkin & Kidde
Attorney's at Law
Eighteenth Floor
10940 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA, 90024-3945
(310) 209 4400
Cable SLK Mark - Telex 4961615
Facsimile: (310) 209-4450

    August 6, 1997


Thomas M. Small

Direct Dial: (310) 209 4404
 

Mr. Homer Smith

25 Fairview Square

PO 880

Ithaca, NY 14851-0880


 Re: SCIENTOLOGIE.DE


Dear Mr.  Smith,


Our client, Religious Technology Center, recently became aware of
the registration of the subject domain name (scientologie.de) by the
organization identified as Freie Zone E.V.  in Germany.  As in
the case of SCIENTOLOGIE.ORG, Bernard Luebeck is identified as
"Administrative Contact" and you are identified as "Technical
Contact".


As you well know, SCIENTOLOGY and SCIENTOLOGIE are registered
trademarks and service marks of our client.  Despite our earlier
demands that you stop servicing domain names that are identical fo
these marks, you are presently supporting the subject domain name.
The SCIENTOLOGIE.DE domain name is registered through DE-NIC to access
your computer servers.


Your actions in this respect will lead to litigation unless you
act immediately to stop supporting the domain name in question.


Your prompt response and compliance are required if legal
proceedings are to be avoided.  Unless we hear from you immediately,
we will assume that further proceedings are necessary.

    Very truely yours,

    Thomas M.  Small

    TNS/vi

To sum up:

Homer Wilson Smith has made a public statement that he will continue to
host the scientologie.de domain on his system.

We feel the church should make contact with Bernd Leubeck and the Free Zone 
Association since scientologie.de is our homepage and we are the correct 
target. If there are further threats made against Homer Wilson Smith we 
shall place the Scientologie.de pages on a German system. 

You can find out more about the book and Dr. Nordenholz at:

http://www.scientologie.de

You can find out more about the Free Zone Association at:

http://www.freezone.org

Old Timer
for
The Board of Directors
of the 
Freie Zone e.V. (Free Zone Association)