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The Trademarked LawPundit Name has been Stolen at Twitter which is Criminally Abetting Identity Theft : Here is our Complaint to Twitter

By Andis Kaulins

The legal community must begin coming down harder on identity theft and the online companies who abet identity theft and make their fortunes by knowingly abetting criminal behaviour, in the instant case, the website Twitter.com.

Let us take a current real-world example involving the trademarked name of our own syndicated blog, LawPundit, whereby someone - not I, the trademark owner - has unlawfully taken the name lawpundit at Twitter. This unknown person who has surely chosen anonymity as a shield against his or her crime, is "following" legal websites, and is thus creating confusion for my own brand, since people think it is I. Here is my complaint to Twitter, sent today:

"This is the second complaint that I am lodging about identity theft at Twitter because the Twitter identity theft that I identified to you previously at http://twitter.com/lawpundit continues unabated.

You are knowingly - and thus criminally - abetting the infringement of my lawpundit trademark, since this is a form of common law fraud in order for you to make money.

LawPundit is a mark in trade, a trade mark, i.e. a trademarked name
specifically so declared online since September, 2003 in the phrase:

"LawPundit? is a trademark name"

as found on over 1000 LawPundit postings online: see http://www.lawpundit.com/blog/lawpundit.htm.

A search of lawpundit by Google, for example, currently gives 34,000 hits. It is impossible that a good faith Twitter user could not have found that the name lawpundit is trademarked, since that trademark is declared on every website page of LawPundit at more than 1000 postings.

Someone - not I or anyone affiliated with me - has intentionally stolen the name lawpundit for use at Twitter and is following legal sites - thereby creating intentional confusion in the legal community that the "lawpundit" at Twitter is the present writer, which is not true. Anyone receiving a Tweet from this Twitter name might think that it is I. It is identity theft.

This complaint to Twitter is a formal legal request to close down that infringing Twitter account and to transfer the Twitter name lawpundit to me, Andis Kaulins, the rightful trademark owner.

You can see address information about lawpundit.com and me at WhoIs.net - http://www.whois.net/whois/lawpundit.com, where I am listed as the owner of the website, since the year 2003.

"domain: lawpundit.com
created: 27-Sep-2003
last-changed: 17-Sep-2008
registration-expiration: 27-Sep-2009

nserver: ns49.1und1.de
nserver: ns50.1und1.de

status: CLIENT-TRANSFER-PROHIBITED

registrant-firstname: Andis
registrant-lastname: Kaulins
registrant-organization: Translaton dba Andis Kaulins
registrant-street1: Gartenstr. 10
registrant-pcode: 56841
registrant-city: Traben-Trarbach
registrant-ccode: DE
registrant-phone: +49.6541812188
registrant-fax: +49.65415213
registrant-email: kaulinsandis@msn.com

admin-c-firstname: Andis
admin-c-lastname: Kaulins
admin-c-organization: Translaton dba Andis Kaulins
admin-c-street1: Gartenstr. 10
admin-c-pcode: 56841
admin-c-city: Traben-Trarbach
admin-c-ccode: DE
admin-c-phone: +49.6541812188
admin-c-fax: +49.65415213
admin-c-email: kaulinsandis@msn.com

tech-c-firstname: Hostmaster
tech-c-lastname: EINSUNDEINS
tech-c-organization: 1&1 Internet AG
tech-c-street1: Brauerstr. 48
tech-c-pcode: 76135
tech-c-city: Karlsruhe
tech-c-ccode: DE
tech-c-phone: +49.721913747660
tech-c-fax: +49.72191374246
tech-c-email: hostmaster@1und1.de

bill-c-firstname: Hostmaster
bill-c-lastname: EINSUNDEINS
bill-c-organization: 1&1 Internet AG
bill-c-street1: Brauerstr. 48
bill-c-pcode: 76135
bill-c-city: Karlsruhe
bill-c-ccode: DE
bill-c-phone: +49.721913747660
bill-c-fax: +49.72191374246
bill-c-email: hostmaster@1und1.de"

If this correction is not done promptly, I intend to sue Twitter as an example of a clear case where people are making money by acting wilfully as accomplices to identity theft, and I will see if I can convince local prosecutors to lodge criminal charges against the management and board of directors of Twitter, because once Twitter has been advised of the facts, continued permission of the use by infringer(s) of the name lawpundit in a legal context is an intentional criminal act.

Thank you.

Your sincerely,

Andis Kaulins (owner of the trademark LawPundit)
Gartenstrasse 10
56841 Traben-Trarbach
Germany"

Full post as published by LawPundit on July 02, 2009 (boomark / email).