Our name and logo are the property of this Church corporation! This has been our name and logo since we were established on Feb. 2, 1927 and we have never ceased our legal existance.
The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.
Service mark is word(s), symbol or phrase used to identify owner of mark. In this case our mark, according to the USPTO shows the logo with text and below states: (Words Only): THE HOLY EASTERN ORTHODOX CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA
Thus use of our mark in whole or in part is illegal when another "church" takes our name and/or logo and claims to be us.
Our mark has been in use (common law) since 1927 for our church and since
1928 for the corporation and in 2000 was Registered with the USPTO. Since we
have had the name more than 5 years under both common law and as a Registered
Mark our rights by law give us exclusive right to the use of the mark and this
is incontestable according to law.
15 USC § 1065
Our evidence as to our legal status includes our Corporate entity documents dated 1928 and all prior use/ownership rights to our Service Mark (our name and logo Registered with the U.S. Patent Trademark office in 2000) and related documents are public record. Also the AZ and TN mark and formerly registered in Colorado.
You may visit the Secretary of the Commonwealth website and do a search on our name (copies of corp. documents below). You will find that the individual whose name appears below is the President of this Church Corporation that was incorporated by Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh of blessed memory on Feb, 1, 1928.
Most Rev. Victor Prentice
Corporate President
NOTE: The law does not require a continous registration of a service
or trademark. Use and ownership for 5 years gives you full ownership. We have
had the name since 1927 and claim commonlaw ownership since 1932. We claim
Ownership under the law since we registered the name with the USPTO in 2000 and
our service mark (name and logo) were legally ours since 2005.
15 USC § 1065