In May 2011 it was reported to members that "The 4-year campaign to suppress BAFF by 'The Combined Armed Forces Federation UK' [CAFFUK] ... 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..."
The attempt to suppress BAFF* followed our offer to support CAFFUK's pre-1975 forces pension campaign (but only if they wanted, and in a way which made it clear that they, and not BAFF, were the campaigners on that issue).
* Note: direct and indirect references in this article to 'BAFF' relate to the former BAFF (2006) Ltd, but are retained here for archival purposes.
Threats
Following our offer of support, CAFFUK issued a letter on Christmas Eve 2007 threatening BAFF with legal injunctive action, and a claim for "costs and exemplary damages" if we didn't cease operations 'immediately', inform all concerned, and remove BAFF (2006) Ltd from the Companies Register. The supposed basis of the threats was a trademark which CAFF claimed to have 'registered'.
Crucially the threats were also published on both CAFFUK websites.
The truth was that trademark registration had only been applied for, not granted – and even if it had been granted, it still couldn't have any of the legal effects asserted by CAFF. Apart from anything else, BAFF's right to continue using the words 'armed forces federation' in its operating title couldn't be removed by some other party deciding to register a trademark.
The problem for BAFF was that, as a relatively new organisation operating since December 2006, we couldn't expect our core target membership necessarily to know that the published pseudo-legal claims had multiple problems in actual law.
Our lawyers clearly explained all this in a letter to the CAFFUK correspondent and trademark applicant, and invited him to undertake not to repeat the threats.
The threats were removed from the CAFF websites, but no undertaking was forthcoming not to repeat them. This resulted in an unnecessarily-prolonged trademark dispute which the CAFFUK side lost, appealed, and lost again.
Having begun the dispute with their threats of "exemplary damages and costs", following failure of the appeal the CAFF committee now announced that the costs awarded against their representative were no concern of theirs. The trademark applicant then made two attempts through the courts to block recovery of the lawfully awarded costs; these attempts also failed, and the costs were successfully recovered along with the inevitable costs of enforcement.
Additionally, CAFF attempts to cancel BAFF's company and trademark registrations both failed at the first hurdle. CAFFUK also opposed a private members' bill which simply promoted the concept of independent representation for armed forces personnel; BAFF supported it.
One-sided
The dispute was in truth one-sided, in that CAFFUK, while not noticeably engaged with any personnel or veteran issues other than their pre-1975 veteran pension grievance, were claiming an exclusive right to recruit and represent "other ranks" of HM Forces.
Conversely BAFF, while making a case for future arrangements which would not have affected CAFF's pension campaign, was not claiming any kind of monopoly, and had no problem with CAFFUK recruiting and representing whoever chose to join them. We only ever received one membership enquiry specifically in connection with the pre-1975 pension grievance: this being in BAFF's early days, we directed the gentleman (a Royal Marines veteran) to CAFFUK.
Despite CAFFUK's strenuous efforts to frame the dispute as "other ranks" versus "officers", "senior officers", or even "staff officers" (it varied), all 15 members of BAFF's Executive Council, whose serving or former ranks ranged from corporal upwards, would have been equally eligible for committee roles under CAFFUK's own constitution. (To complicate that point, the maximum ranks stipulated by CAFF weren't actually equivalent across the services.)
While CAFFUK had made a determined attempt to terminate BAFF by threats of legal action, BAFF's successful opposition to CAFFUK's trademark application was on purely statutory grounds, and was never intended to affect any legitimate CAFFUK activity, including continued use of its organisational name and logo.
Unwanted
it would be tempting to portray all this as a dispute between two rival organisations competing for the same potential members, but in reality that was never BAFF's position. Although we won every stage, the dispute was very much unwanted by BAFF. Our successful opposition to their trademark application was legally well-founded as the law stood, but would not have been necessary if CAFFUK admin had simply undertaken as requested not to repeat the published trademark-related threats.
The BAFF opposition to the trademark application was triggered by a clumsy but very deliberate attempt to put BAFF permanently off the road – and the prospect of more of the same in the event of the trademark being successfully registered.
The CAFF representative did less than nothing to remove such concerns during the trademark dispute procedures, describing our trademark opposition as 'desperate', whereas BAFF made a point of telling him that there was no question of our exploiting our own registered trademark in a similar manner against CAFF.
(In our case the trademark registration was genuine.)
Likewise, BAFF's opposition to statutory registration of a trademark in no way questioned CAFF's right to exist, to operate, and to recruit members. We didn't treat CAFF as competitors – hence our offer to support their pension campaign, and our directing to CAFF that one and only membership enquiry – but they had every right to compete if they wanted.
References
The dispute is mentioned in two archived articles: Pre-1975 service pensions, and Why didn't the BAFF founders join CAFFUK instead? A third article, 'Armed Forces Federation': Half a century 1956-2006, shows that both the idea and the phrase 'Armed Forces Federation' had existed for many decades, and were not invented by either CAFF UK or BAFF.
We were very grateful for the advice and assistance provided by our then solicitor Edward Cooper of Russell, Jones & Walker (RJW – now incorporated in Slater and Gordon), and by senior and junior counsel instructed by RJW. The CAFF side were not asked to contribute to these legal costs. We were represented at the opposition hearing, at the appeal, and at the final County Court hearing by our then chairman, Douglas Young, supported at the court hearing by two other members of the Executive Council.