Monster Cable pushes around the wrong small company

Blue Jeans Cable Strikes Back - Response to Monster Cable

This is the first 4 or 5 paragraphs of what is a really funny letter. If you want to read the whole thing follow this link - Article

and you can skip to the best part of the article at the bottom of this post.
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Not long ago we reported that Monster Cable had issued a cease and desist letter to Blue Jeans Cable about their Tartan cables. Little did the lawyer drones over at Monster know that Kurt Denke, the president of Blue Jeans was, in a former life, a lawyer by trade. Oops! Someone pushed around the wrong "small" company! While we are no legal experts, we recognize humor when we see it. And this is funny. With Blue Jeans Cable's permission, we've included their full response to Monster's letter below. Kurt wants to keep this entire process completely open to the public and we're more than happy to oblige. Enjoy...

Dear Monster Lawyers,

Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster's, in form or in function, the better.

I am evaluating your claim that the connectors on certain Tartan brand products infringe Monster's design patents and trademarks. However, the information supplied with your letter is plainly inadequate to support a claim of infringement and so I am writing to you to ask for further information and clarification regarding your claims.

I will begin by addressing your trademark/trade dress claim. You have referred to two trademark registrations, and have attached some printouts from the USPTO system but the depiction of the marks on the drawings provided is small and indistinct, making it difficult to determine exactly what the alleged resemblance is, and I need further information from you.

First, I need legible, scale drawings of the marks, preferably with dimensions shown on the drawing. To the extent that drawings are inadequate to show the nature of materials, finishes, print legends, colors and the like, I will also need examples of each of Monster Cable's actual uses of these marks in commerce; actual physical examples would be best, but photographic reproductions might do. As you will understand, these considerations are essential to any claim arising out of trade dress, as you are alleging in essence that there is a resemblance sufficient to cause confusion over the identity or origin of the goods, and no mere line-drawing can suffice.

Second, I will need copies of the trademark applications and any correspondence between the applicant and the USPTO in support of the applications.

Third, you have not identified the Monster Cable products in question, in actual use and distribution in commerce, whose trade dress you allege has been appropriated. I have reviewed Monster Cable's online materials and have examined connectors on various Monster Cable assemblies in local retail outlets and am unable to determine which, if any, of these are thought by Monster to represent use of these particular marks. I am also unable to determine from this review whether Monster Cable actually offers any product for sale to which the Tartan connectors are alleged to be particularly similar. My own sense of it, in looking at the connectors, has been that there is no similarity between the Tartan connectors and any of the many Monster Cable connectors beyond the general functional and conventional characteristics which all or nearly all solder-cup, mechanical-assembly, barrel-style RCA-type connectors share. It may be that there is some line of products to which you have intended to refer but which I have not found in Monster Cable's marketing materials or displays; but if so, you will need to show me specifically what product it is, and you will need to call to my attention the specific aspects of the connector design which you contend constitute unique Monster Cable trade dress, what the associated secondary meaning of those aspects of the trade dress is, and in what manner and by what characteristics you allege that this trade dress has been appropriated.

Fourth, if the dimensional characteristics of the connector as used in commerce vary from the dimensions of the scale drawing of your mark, I will need a proper scale drawing, with dimensions, of each version of the actual connector as used in commerce, as well as photographs of the connectors showing actual in-use finishes. If there is more than one such connector design in actual use by Monster Cable as to which appropriation of trade dress is alleged, of course, I will require this information for each and every such design.

On the basis of what I have seen, both in the USPTO documents you have sent and the actual appearance of Monster Cable connectors which I have observed in use in commerce, it does not appear to me that Monster Cable is in a position to advance a nonfrivolous claim for infringement of these marks. There simply is not sufficient resemblance between the Tartan connectors and any mark or any example of the marks' actual use that I can find to support such a claim. But if you have further information for me on that point, you are welcome to submit it.

You have also supplied me with partial documentation on five design patents which you claim these connectors infringe.


.....cont

I have seen Monster Cable take untenable IP positions in various different scenarios in the past, and am generally familiar with what seems to be Monster Cable's modus operandi in these matters. I therefore think that it is important that, before closing, I make you aware of a few points.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle. In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table. I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.

I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands. Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind. If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.

I will also point out to you that if you do choose to undertake litigation, your "upside" is tremendously limited. If you somehow managed, despite the formidable obstacles in your way, to obtain a finding of infringement, and if you were successful at recovering a large licensing fee--say, ten cents per connector--as the measure of damages, your recovery to date would not reach four figures. On the downside, I will advance defenses which, if successful, will substantially undermine your future efforts to use these patents and marks to threaten others with these types of actions; as you are of course aware, it is easier today for your competitors to use collateral estoppel offensively than it ever has been before. Also, there is little doubt that making baseless claims of trade dress infringement and design patent infringement is an improper business tactic, which can give rise to unfair competition claims, and for a company of Monster's size, potential antitrust violations with treble damages and attorneys' fees.

I look forward to receiving the information requested and will review it promptly as soon as it is received.

Sincerely,

Kurt Denke

[The Godfather]

Besides being a degenerate, I am also an audiophile who happens to use Blue Jeans for most of my needs in that area. If there are any audiovisual nuts lurking, you might want to check out hometheaterforum, avsforum, hometheatershack or the hometheaterspot.

It is about time somebody stepped to Monster. These idiots actually believe they own the word Monster and if you take time to do the research have sued almost everybody who uses the name whether it has something to do with audio or not.

[salutationsb]

That was great. Monster is severely over rated and over priced! I wish I had this guys skills I would pull some great pranks.

[megagreg1]

I read a whole story on a site called the consumerist about how a group of audiophiles got together and tested a bunch of cables one of them being the more expensive of the monster brand and another being coat hangers and they actually rated the coat hangers as sounding better this not knowing that they were even in the mix. Bear in mind this was a blindfolded test.

IMO as a live sound professional cables are for the most part wire wrapped in an insulator with a connector at one or both ends.

[Carlito's way]

well, i believe that they are overrated but one thing i know for a fact is

that all of the DIGITAL cables that are gold plated or bigger diameter cabling in order to have better sound is bullshit. That may have some truth in truth in the analog world but in DIGITAL it is either on or off.

In other words, either the cable delivers the signal or it doesnt. There is no "weak" signals resulting from smaller cables.

The bigger, supposedly better, digital cables they try to sell you are complete bullshit and a waste of money.

[Mohaman Cheez]

Way to Hulk the Fuck Up Kurt Denke,hehe


Denke SMASH Monster!!

[mikea84]

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That is a fallacy. It is true digitial is on/off only, but very cheap cables can have higher loss and attenuation, thus it takes a shorter distance of that cable before it will stop working.

Granted most people dont run cables very long so the effects are very small, but to say the cable plays no roll is false. For most applications they don't matter, but a very few they do.

[Thomas]

^^^ sounds accurate but i'm sure there is a bit of overkill with the Monster Cables. Surely there is no need for a set of overpriced cables if you are hooking up components that are stacked on top of eachother.

Running long cables you probably would want to buy the best that you could afford though.

and, of course, stay away from the cheapest shite that you find at drugstores and such...

[The Godfather]

Mike,

Put your running shoes on and post this at one of the sites I mentioned above:

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You will get run off and probably banned for being troll for one of the expensive cable providers.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hlight=Monster

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...ble-again.html



Cheap cable providers that beat Monster in performance, specifications and price:

Monoprice.com
signalcable.com
bluejeancable.com
ramelectronics.net

Most of this stuff is mil-spec and has been tested in the most critical of missions. Monster has never been to space. They just leave space in your pocket.

Admittedly Monster is at the bottom of the ripoff scale but is the most popular, go here if you just gotta waste some real money:

http://www.analysis-plus.com/prod_interconnects.html
http://www.purenote.com/pricing.htm
... got more if you ask

[mikea84]

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I am by no means a troll for the cable companies. I agree that monster is an overpriced ripoff. I was disputing the fact that all cables are equal when it comes to digital signals this is just not true.

When measuring cables in a digital system, you can tell the cheaper cables by looking at an Eye-diagram. When you use cheap cables, at significantly long distances, the eye begins to close. Thus there is no way to tell a 0 from a 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_diagram

My discussion was based on how a cable works, not how companies rip you off for cables.