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(Fictional analogy)
Joe was an ordinary and simple man who worked in the mixing department at the Coca Cola® beverage company for many years. Joe became quite skilled at mixing the water, spices and other ingredients to make the syrup for Coca Cola beverages.
After a few years Joe got to thinking about the popularity of the Coca Cola® beverage company's drinks and the profits it was making from selling drinks made from the syrups he was mixing. One day Joe decided he did not need to mix syrup for the Coca Cola® beverage company anymore, he would open his own beverage company.
So in no time at all Joe has set up shop mixing the ingredients he knew from working his job at the Coca Cola® beverage company and soon he was selling thousands of his beverages to the public in bright red and white cans and bottles labeled Coca Cola.
Joe was making lots of money and really enjoyed operating his new company until one day a lawyer from the Coca Cola® beverage company knocked on his door and served his company with an injunction to cease and desist making and selling products to the public bearing the Coca Cola name and logo. HOW DARE THEY!!! They could not do this to him! He was gonna fight them all the way to the supreme court!!
So Joe hired his own team of attorneys with the profits he had made selling his beverages in cans and bottles labeled with the Coca Cola® trademark and he went to court.
During the course of the lawsuit, Joe slowly and expensively learned a very simple rule of discipline and respect:
If it does not belong to you, then do not use it without permission. Period.
Joe also learned that when the owner of the trademark being infringed wins their case, they may be awarded triple damages (three times all the profits from using their mark) and attorney fees for the court case.
When the case was over Joe was almost bankrupt and completely out of business until he came up with a great idea. He would reopen his company and just change the name on the cans and bottles to Joe's Cola. He was back in business!
Joe went back to mixing his syrup and making his beverages with the same recipe as before, but now he was selling them under a new name, Joe's Cola; however, sales were not what they used to be and not as many people were buying his beverages as before. Apparently people did not know what to expect when they bought a Joe's Cola, unlike when they bought the well known Coca Cola® beverages. Then Joe encountered another problem... another lawyer and another injunction from the Coca Cola® company.
This was preposterous! They were out to ruin him! They were just trying to put him out of business! Now the Coca Cola® company claimed he was still using their proprietary beverage recipe to make his beverages. Well DUH! Of course he was. It was the only recipe he knew. He had mixed that recipe for years and it was a good one so he saw no reason to change it, but now the Coca Cola® company was going to try and make him stop. WELL! He'd show them!
So off to court Joe went for a second time and during the course of the lawsuit, Joe slowly and expensively learned a very simple rule of discipline and respect: If it does not belong to you, then do not use it without permission. Period. Joe also learned that when the owner of the intellectual property or formula that is used without permission wins their case, then the damages they are awarded will likely exceed the illegal profits earned by using their property without their permission.
Joe finally understands the very simple rule of discipline and respect that is at the core of trademark law and he finally realized that what he should have done initially was to create his own recipe and use his own name and he could have avoided a lot of embarrassment, trouble, expense, bankruptcy and starting over from scratch.
Today, Joe sells his own beverage recipe that is very different from the one he previously copied from the Coca Cola® beverage company and Joe uses his own name on the bottles and cans and best of all he doesn't have any of those pesky lawyers knocking on his door anymore.
Coca Cola® is a registered trademark of the Coca Cola® beverage company.
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Now insert here ANY martial artist's story who is using the Moo Duk Kwan® name and/or logo without authorization or who is teaching something that they call "Moo Duk Kwan" and consider how their tale parallels the Joe Cola story.
Pick a story. Any story.
Pick them all.
Vurtually every story includes the same lack of knowledge, misinformation, willful infringment or just plain uninformed ignorance, but as we know "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and ignorance does not protect one who has violated a law.
Those who decided to disassociate from the Moo Duk Kwan® martial art and its Founder Hwang Kee for whatever reason at some point in history usually have some epic tale of woe detailing their justifications for departing in passionate and colorful detail.
The short version of many of their tales is that at some point, for some reason Joe decided to leave the Moo Duk Kwan® and just take the name and recipe with him. Certainly any practitioner has the freedom to choose to leave, but not to take the Moo Duk Kwan® name and martial art system contents along with them without permission.
Then there are Joe's poor uninformed students who were never educated by their instructor about the Moo Duk Kwan's unique identity or how they could be legitimately associated with the official Moo Duk Kwan® organization. Unfortunately, these students were never taught the discipline and respect of honoring the unique identity of the Moo Duk Kwan and they may not have been informed of their opportunity to seek legitimate Moo Duk Kwan® affiliation if they so desired. These unfortunate students may have been mislead and misinformed for years. To put it more bluntly the students may have been victims of misrepresentation, fraud and counterfeiting as a result of their instructor's identity theft of the well known Moo Duk Kwan® name.
When some unauthorized practitioners are advised of their unauthorized use, they apologize and initiate corrective actions immediately.
However, some who are duly notified to cease their unauthorized use of the Moo Duk Kwan® and to refrain from further trademark infringement and the use of that which does not belong to them begin wailing and gnashing their teeth like Joe. OHHHHHHH the indignation, the stubborn refusal to cease using the Moo Duk Kwan name or logo that they stole. Typically, these individuals also craft lengthy diatribes of justifications for their actions, as if somehow their passionate outpourings will redeem them and give them absolution for their wrongdoing. In fact, because some may have been engaging in their fraudulent activity in relative secrecy for a while they think its OK and that they cannot be stopped. Hello Joe.
- Trademark Infringement
- Trademark Dilution
- Misrepresentation
- Imitation
- Fraud
- Counterfeiting
- Copyright Infringement
- Identify Theft
Somehow these individuals do not understand that just because you have gotten away with speeding on the highway before that does not make speeding legal. When you get caught speeding you will pay the price.
Ironically, in most cases the unauthorized Moo Duk Kwan instructor teaching students may have spent considerable effort convincing them that the beverage they are drinking from the can fraudulently labeled as Moo Duk Kwan is the real Moo Duk Kwan beverage.
The mislabeled can they used to serve it to the students may have looked very similar, but the recipe inside is tainted and does not have the same flavor as the real Moo Duk Kwan®. How could it? It is only a copy, an imitation; a counterfeit made up to look like the real thing and in many instances fraudulently sold to the unsuspecting public for a premium price.
In fact, a pair of instructors in Colorado are currently being sued [Jan 2008] by students and parents who were told they were paying for instruction and rank certification in the Moo Duk Kwan martial art. The problem for these instructors is that they were not authorized to teach or issue rank in the Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan martial art and they had misrepresented that they were teaching the legitimate Moo Duk Kwan® martial art system. Now they may face charges of misrepresentation, fraud and counterfeiting in addition to the damages being sought by the students and parents who were deceived. This is unfortunate for all parties involved.
The U.S. Federation's concept of unity provides an opportunity for ANY person or practitioner, especially those with Moo Duk Kwan® roots, to be part of the Home that is the U.S. Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation® and to join the membership that is the community of legitimate Moo Duk Kwan practitioners in the U.S. The Federation's charter further assures members that they will enjoy a unique identity as Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan practitioners.
It is unfortunate that in the Moo Duk Kwan's® long and distinguished history there have been so many individuals who have failed to demonstrate the discipline and respect due the Moo Duk Kwan martial art and it's founder and its present day practitioners by misleading and misinforming so many unsuspecting students.
However, remaining true to it's concept of unity and chartered purposes, the U.S. Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation still opens it doors to any who person and all practitioners who wish to become members and join in the preservation efforts of the Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan martial art system as intended by its founder Hwang Kee and as envisioned by the current Kwan Jang Nim, H.C. Hwang.
If you have never trained and would like to, or whether you are a practitioner who has just never been informed or even if you are a practitioner who has been actively misinformed to believe that you were learning the Moo Duk Kwan® martial art founded by Hwang Kee, you are welcome to apply for membership in the community that is the U.S. Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation®.
Apply Today.
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