This is a short version of a report to members in May 2011 which began:
"The 4-year campaign to suppress BAFF by "The Combined Armed Forces Federation UK" (CAFF UK / CAFFUK) pre-1975 leavers has finally been seen off, after a series of rulings in BAFF's favour."This tedious "People's Front of Judea" saga is therefore at an end..."
That referred to a trademark dispute which CAFFUK created by unwarranted threats of infringement proceedings, which they sent to BAFF at Christmas 2007, and published on CAFFUK's two public websites:
"The Title, Letterhead, Logo and Trade Mark of The Combined Armed Forces Federation UK (CAFF UK) is registered for copyright protection with the UK Intellectual Property Office.
You are required by The Combined Armed Forces Federation UK to immediately remove the title, letterhead, logo and trade mark of BAFF (2006) Ltd from the entire public domain including its website and Company House registration.
Any failure to comply with the above requirement and inform those to whom it may concern immediately, will be regarded as a continued act of piracy and an injunction will be applied for to prevent any further breach of copyright. A claim for costs and exemplary damages will also be made."
It turned out that CAFFUK hadn't genuinely registered any trademark with the UK Intellectual Property Office.
A CAFFUK representative had in fact applied for trademark (not 'copyright') registration of its "Union Jack and crown" logo. The proposed trademark had been published by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) for possible objection, and was still open for objection.
Even if the CAFFUK trademark truly had been registered, CAFF had no grounds of legal action against BAFF because we had neither copied their trademark, nor were we pretending to be them. In reality, BAFF had offered them support for their pre-1975 pension campaign (but only if they wanted), and had referred to CAFFUK the only membership enquiry BAFF ever received about that pension grievance,
The public pseudo-legal threats therefore had multiple problems, with no basis in actual law. But, as a new organisation at the time, BAFF couldn't expect our target membership of serving personnel and veterans necessarily to know that.
Because CAFF wouldn't undertake not to repeat the threats, it was decided to oppose the trademark application. We also had to continue defensively monitoring the CAFFUK websites.
The trademark dispute decision went in BAFF's favour but the CAFFUK representative decided to appeal, probably against expensive legal advice funded from CAFF veterans' subscriptions. The appeal was unsuccessful, and registration of the CAFFUK trademark was refused.
Having been responsible for the original 'exemplary damages' threats and having been aware of the trademark dispute throughout, the CAFFUK committee then announced that the legally-enforceable costs awarded against their representative were no concern of theirs.
Their representative also refused to pay, and finally made two attempts through the courts to block recovery of the debt. He was again unsuccessful, and the awarded costs were recovered in full by enforcement action, along with the additional costs for enforcement.
References and notes
The dispute is also mentioned in:
- Why didn't BAFF campaign about the pre-1975 forces pension issue?
- Why didn't the BAFF founders join CAFFUK instead?
External link: Trade mark victory for the Queen [NB: relevant trademark law has changed since our case.]
While the time and attention demanded by this saga did cause damage, our volunteers' best efforts continued. See for example BAFF in the news (2008-2010), which covers a period in the middle of the regrettable dispute.
