Dear TMC Community,
We prefer to keep the discussion on the TMC forums focused on Tesla and EVs, however we feel it necessary to clarify the following issue so as to alleviate further misunderstanding and confusion.
In order to stage last year's TMC event, TESLIVE 2013, TMC collaborated with some event planners who assured us of their experience and professionalism. However, soon after the event we learned these event planners had applied for sole ownership of a trademark for the word TESLIVE, without notifying TMC. As part of their application, they disingenuously used a screenshot of a TMC owned website as proof of use. When asked to withdraw or modify their trademark application, they refused. TMC was then forced to file an opposition to their trademark application. After many months, this was finally successful in that we have just last Thursday received notice that they are no longer pursuing this trademark application.
In addition to trying to appropriate TESLIVE and the goodwill associated with it from TMC, they have made use of TMC intellectual property, namely the member and viewer contact information that TMC sourced for the purposes of staging TESLIVE. We warned them on multiple occasions not to use TMC’s IP, to which they eventually responded assuring us in writing that they would not use TMC’s IP. However, they then went against their own word by sending out emails to TESLIVE contacts to promote their new event.
Last Monday, we sent a cease and desist letter notifying them that legal action would ensue should they continue to abuse our intellectual property and violate user privacy. They responded Thursday by agreeing in writing to delete all TESLIVE contact information. However, on Friday they sent out another email to TMC’s TESLIVE contact list, addressing the contacts as their “pre-registrants”, despite many of these contacts having subsequently confirmed to us that they had never pre-registered for their event.
TMC is very supportive of most Tesla enthusiast events and activities. However, we will not allow entities to misappropriate the TMC website, name, member information, and intellectual property for their own purposes. For this reason and due to the unethical nature of their actions, we are not permitting their event to be promoted on this site.
TMC's goals are to provide information to the Tesla enthusiast community and promote the EV movement in general. It is unfortunate that this issue needed to be addressed, as it distracts from these goals
We prefer to keep the discussion on the TMC forums focused on Tesla and EVs, however we feel it necessary to clarify the following issue so as to alleviate further misunderstanding and confusion.
In order to stage last year's TMC event, TESLIVE 2013, TMC collaborated with some event planners who assured us of their experience and professionalism. However, soon after the event we learned these event planners had applied for sole ownership of a trademark for the word TESLIVE, without notifying TMC. As part of their application, they disingenuously used a screenshot of a TMC owned website as proof of use. When asked to withdraw or modify their trademark application, they refused. TMC was then forced to file an opposition to their trademark application. After many months, this was finally successful in that we have just last Thursday received notice that they are no longer pursuing this trademark application.
In addition to trying to appropriate TESLIVE and the goodwill associated with it from TMC, they have made use of TMC intellectual property, namely the member and viewer contact information that TMC sourced for the purposes of staging TESLIVE. We warned them on multiple occasions not to use TMC’s IP, to which they eventually responded assuring us in writing that they would not use TMC’s IP. However, they then went against their own word by sending out emails to TESLIVE contacts to promote their new event.
Last Monday, we sent a cease and desist letter notifying them that legal action would ensue should they continue to abuse our intellectual property and violate user privacy. They responded Thursday by agreeing in writing to delete all TESLIVE contact information. However, on Friday they sent out another email to TMC’s TESLIVE contact list, addressing the contacts as their “pre-registrants”, despite many of these contacts having subsequently confirmed to us that they had never pre-registered for their event.
TMC is very supportive of most Tesla enthusiast events and activities. However, we will not allow entities to misappropriate the TMC website, name, member information, and intellectual property for their own purposes. For this reason and due to the unethical nature of their actions, we are not permitting their event to be promoted on this site.
TMC's goals are to provide information to the Tesla enthusiast community and promote the EV movement in general. It is unfortunate that this issue needed to be addressed, as it distracts from these goals
