Yep, read it. I hear ya but had to give a chance, everyone deserves to be heard, and she spoke and… I went and signed the petition. This is just awful.
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it is not a “patent”, it’s a TradeMark. And no you cannot get TradeMark for these terms, and she should not have been able to get a trademark for reborn baby doll. Unfortunately, if it has to go to court that will take years if not decades, and cost hundreds of thousand $. Google the Ugg boot story or Shabby Chic.
Yes, even BB are not be able to use the term. Nobody is.
If her trademark is registered such a way that in covers listings in China, then eBay will remove the Chinese sellers’ listings too. If they do not she will be able to sue them.
eBay does not push the Chinese items, but they do not care where their money comes from. However they will not allow anything that is in breach of the trademark because they are opened to be sued by the owner of the trademark… So, theoretically, eBay might have to remove the Chinese kits and dolls if they use the term “reborn baby doll”, but in the process they will also remove everybody else’s. The Chinese will come up with different term. Hope she will spend lots of money and nobody would be silly enough to buy her dolls anyway.
In a meanwhile, remove any mention of reborn from your listings and if eBay removes your listing here is the info what to do:
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that’s what finally made me realize she was actually a wiener and not just unfortunate. when the internet was new and we thought domain names were everything, there was a wiener who bought business.com just to resell it. “cyber squat” is what they called it back then. He sold it for $7 million. It was nothing but the domain name. no actual business or anything. For some reason this reminded me of that. names aren’t everything. we can change it.
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Her trademark is only enforceable in the USA.
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In that case what would happen if you guys list your dolls on eBay Canada with shipping to USA?
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No idea. I’m in Sydney, Australia.
Then you are OK for time being, unless she expands her trademark to international.
Sounds like she’s going to sell it to the highest bidder.
Nobody will give her 10 cent for it,I am hoping unless they do it just to get rid of her.
I hope I am wrong but I don’t think she did not know what she was doing or the consequences due to the time period it took to get the trademark. By the way, the letter is great.
So, bless your heart, I wish this person was reasonable and kind like we are. It seems her intention IS to hurt other artists. Crazy as it is.
The latest from Bobbi Barfoot:
“PLEASE READ! EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!
Reborn community, we got some disturbing news today. After an hour long phone conversation with the registered owner of the trademark in question, we were told that there is NO intention to settle! She plans to drag this out in court AND possibly file personal suit against everyone who she claims harassed her! This deliberate attack on our industry could hurt a LOT of people.We strongly encourage you to be very mindful of what you say. And please be aware that we are doing EVERYTHING humanly possible to resolve this and save the reborn world!”
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Psych consult anyone? Wow. This is becoming more insane by the minute.
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The ONLY way out of this mess is to get the “reborn baby doll” trademark declared invalid on the basis that it is a generic term, just like “oil painting” would be.
Group of reborners could get together and buy the trademark from her. BUT, that still means that somebody could ban anybody they do not like from using the term. Maybe the present group would be benevolent, and only go after China and scammers. But i can foresee number of situations when people would be harmed unfairly. Just look at all those “scammer listing” facebook sites.
Not to mention that people should not be allowed to profit from doing this. Because if she is paid thousands of dollars for this trademark, what next?
In meanwhile, I suggest that you remove any mention of reborn from your listings. It is not just the possibility of eBay or ETSY removing your listing. If she wants to she can demand money from you.
Some years ago, lady came to the eBay forum with question:
"Some months ago I bought a designer brand shirt on eBay; it did not fit me and so I re-sold it. Today I received a legal letter demanding several thousands of dollars compensation for damages due to selling counterfeit item. Is it some sort of joke?"
Well, no, it was not a joke, it was a letter from legal firm representing the well known designer company, who bought the shirt from her, and to cut the long story short, she had to hire an attorney who managed to negotiate the damage payment down to few hundred dollars, but his fee was quite a bit. So, in the end she paid out about 1/2 of the original demand.
In this moment the only “reborn baby or doll” that can be called that is the ones she is selling.
I do not believe for one second that she did not know what she is doing. Looking at her dolls she will never make a fortune on them. Her plan was to make money selling permits to use “her” trademark.
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This is absolutely insane. Best thing to do is use a different term for the dolls until this is settled. Perhaps we can all come up with something that’s not possible to trademark? She’s completely off her nut. Yikes.
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I would not pay this woman one red cent and I hope none of you do either. The money would be better spent contributing to whatever legal fund has been set up to declare her extremely generic term invalid. Feeding into this nonsense would only serve to encourage other desperate, money hungry people to come up with their own schemes.
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Does not matter when your item was listed, now it is her trademarks and nobody else is allowed to use it. It should have never been approved but it was, it was granted to her. Until the trademark is revoked she has a right to it.
I’m not an expert, but I have been making dolls for a LONG time. The term “Reborn” comes from purchasing a factory made doll from like, Walmart, stripping it and re-painting it. Thus “Reborns” Now we don’t have to go as far as stripping a doll…which I suppose makes them New-born instead of re-born.
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UMMMMM $50,000? Where did you see that price?
That is how much it will cost to go to federal court
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