A small club a of a couple dozen members going by the name of Nostalgia Super Stock, Inc., put a registered trademark on the terms “NSS” and “Nostalgia Super Stock” – despite the fact that maybe better than 1000 racers have raced hundreds of Nostalgia Super Stock Races, at dozens of tracks in the last 25 years.
If you go to this club’s site at www.NostalgiaSuperStock.com, you will see that they have place their trademark there. You will also find a link to their member email addresses if you’d like to communicate your feelings to them, and lists of sponsors and events/tracks if you would like to communicate with them.
The below links show the trademarks.
http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn86306801&docId=APP20140614073554#docIndex=13&page=1
https://trademarks.justia.com/863/06/nss-86306798.html
We Will Rule The World All Of Nostalgia Super Stock
While all club members are guilty of allowing this to happen, it appears to be the brainchild of Club Secretary Bob Wilkiewicz, and Club President Rich Berlisk. They recently approached a Doug Duell, who administers Dave Duell Classic and and a member of the National Rules Committee (also trademarked by this club – so all members resigned to form a new rules committee), and informed him of the trademark and their intention of licensing (aka shaking Down) all organizations, promoters, websites, clubs… with both fees and other “requirements”.
More recently, the shakedown has begun with at least one promoter (NMCA) receiving a letter to contact them about licensing requirements.
Initial reaction to many was to drop or rename the class instead of wetting the beak of trademark trolls/squatters, but only the weak cave. A specialist trademark attorney has reviewed the applications the club made, and other documentation of the use of the terms – and while we don’t want to show his complete hand – it is obvious that those trademarks should never have been granted and it is a certainty that revocation will be granted.
The way of most common sense and least cost to all (including the club) would be for them to issue a public apology to all NSS Racers and to surrender the trademark back to the Patent and Trademark office as being they had recently realized (save face avoid fraud) that they are widely used over a long period descriptive terms, and should never be registered trademarks. However, like Pinky and the Brain, narcissistic domination of the class stands in the way of common sense and they’ve refused. Their strategy is to stand by the line that they’re just protecting the name from evil (kettle calling pot black) and they’re all about education – at least until the dust settles.
Well the dust shouldn’t settle until no one has the ability to misuse these terms for their ego and the extortion by licensing of the many outside their little club. So after legal consultation, the next step is to file a legal protest to the Patent and Trademark Office with the many examples of why the application wasn’t proper, and the many reasons the registration of the trademarks need to be immediately revoked. This will cost roughly $5,000 in filing and legal fees. Doug Duell and Dave Schultz have stepped up and pledged $500 each, and feel that another eight organizations and well healed NSS racers will also step forward to do the same. If you are willing to be one of the ten helping to right this wrong, contact Doug or Dave.
While the lawyer feels that this will be a slam-dunk once filed, there’s never 100% certainty when you have Federal Bureaucracy involved. If unsuccessful, then a suit filed in the Federal Court of Milwaukee, against the club and certain members will be required, costing the club member and the petitioner in the $100,000+ each range. We feel we also have that covered, but hopefully it will not go that far.
What NSS drivers can do in the meantime is contact the club’s members, as there certainly must be a few feeling this is wrong and don’t want any part of the shitstorm about to happen. Contact their sponsors who may not be happy of associating with a club using the tactics of the Black Hand. Contact the promoters and tracks to let them know who they’re associating with. Contact car and racing magazines, both print and Internet (even racing forums) to have them post the start of what could be a horrible trend to other classes like Nostalgia Muscle Car, Pro Mod, Nostalgia Funny Car, Nostalgia Pro Stock – or even “Bracket Racing”. No club should be allowed to try to own a widely promoted class of drag racing, and an example needs to be made of any club that does try. Regardless of any other differences, we need a united front of Clubs, Promoters, and drag racers to come together on this cause.
More information can be found at:
- http://www.nssracing.com/forums/showthread.php?4418-The-State-of-the-Class-You-Really-Need-to-Worry-About
- http://www.nssracing.com/forums/showthread.php?4419-Never-Wet-the-Beak-of-the-Black-Hand
