Oh the woes of networking groups.
I am not quite sure how long this battle has been going on between the two chambers. I was alerted of the unfolding situation by the IBJ and a forum post in Smaller Indiana.
Excerpt from the IBJ article:
The Indiana Chamber is basing its Web site arguments on the Federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, as well as Indiana law. It also argues that the Christian Chamber, by infringing on its protected trademark, committed criminal conversion. The counterfeiting and forgery allegations stem from the Christian Chamber’s attempts to publicize itself.
The Indiana Chamber became concerned after state legislators expressed confusion about overlap and assumed an affiliation between the two groups, said George Raymond, the Indiana Chamber vice president of human resources, labor relations and civil justice.
The article goes on to state that the Indiana Chamber contacted the Christian Chamber multiple times since the inception of the group last year.
“Your failure to respond to our earlier letter suggests that you have no intention of complying with our requests and resolving this matter in an amicable fashion,” Taylor wrote. “Several alternatives to the name ‘Indiana Christian Chamber of Commerce’ were offered to you as being acceptable to ICC, to which you have not responded.”
The article makes it very clear that the Christian Chamber failed to respond to multiple inquiries made by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. It is a shame that this dispute has been taken to the legal level.
Whether or not the failure on the Christian Chamber’s side has been blown out of proportion, they do have a long battle on their hands. There is some merit to the Indiana Chamber’s claim of copyright infringement, as well as, the Cybersquatting Act.
I am not going to sit here and take sides. I just wish the matter had been resolved behind closed doors before it was taken to the courts.
Would it have been out of the Christian Chamber’s control to change their name?
For those of you who know me, I am not a supporter of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. It is my humble opinion that the Christian Chamber made a misstep when they started outwardly promoting their brand despite the warnings of the Indiana Chamber. Even if the Indiana Chamber is incorrect in their legal assumption, it would have been in the best interest of the Christian Chamber to settle the matter before things got out of hand.
This is sort of interesting to me, in that the far-reaching arms of the Indiana Chamber may be able to stifle other groups from starting up, based upon the name, which also happens to be the word used to describe its function: chamber. What if, for example, the word magazine or the word salon or the word guild had been taken in association with the state’s name. Could there only be one magazine with the words Indiana and Magazine. Like Indiana Farm Magazine couldn’t co-exist with Indiana Style Magazine? This law seems to be antiquated, in that it prevents future businesses from gaining ground on the basis that a previous organization already exists, ignoring if the previous organization is more or less specialized, successful, functional, or practical. Instead, it is based on which organization came first.
Perhaps I’m shrinking the scope of this topic to smaller than reasonable…