Marans Chicken Club USA

The document cited here is a scan of the Service Mark Application made by Sally Zacharias in the state of Ohio, in order to trademark the club logo for the Marans Chicken Club USA.

a. Ms. Zacharias never received permission from the designer of the club's logo, Ms. Donna Prahl, to appropriate Ms. Prahl's logo. Therefore, Ms. Zacharias has no legal authority to service mark the logo. A statement from Ms. Prahl, clearly affirming that she never assigned any rights concerning the logo to Ms. Zacharias, is included in #2 below.

b. Ms. Zacharias submitted this service mark application while acting as one partner of a general partnership. As can be seen on the application, Ms. Zacharias lists Dick Dickerson as her sole general partner.

As detailed in Ohio Revised Code Title 17, Chapter 1775 (Uniform Partnership Law), Section 17, subsection E: "All partners have equal rights in the management and conduct of the partnership business". Therefore, as general partner with Ms. Zacharias in the service mark application, Mr. Dickerson and Ms. Zacharias would have equal legal rights to use of this service mark even if the service mark were valid.

Mr. Dickerson is a Vice President for the Marans Chicken Club USA, and he affirms the ongoing right of the Marans Chicken Club USA to use the club's logo. This letter of affirmation is discussed further in #3 below.

c. On the application form, when asked "the manner in which the mark is used", Ms. Zacharias answered "Logo -- to be used as advertising our club. Such (as) signs, banners, letterheads, websites, etc.". The Marans Chicken Club USA has been using the club logo in exactly this manner -- as advertising for the club on signs, banners, and websites -- and is therefore in complete compliance with both the spirit and letter of the service mark application.

Donna Prahl is the Regional Director for Region 3 of the Marans Chicken Club USA. She is also the designer of the club's logo. As the designer for our logo, Ms. Prahl legally owns the original copyright to the logo. As detailed in this statement, Ms. Prahl never assigned any rights to Ms. Zacharias regarding the usage of this logo. In fact, Ms. Prahl was forced to take action to federally trademark the logo in order to protect herself from the claims of Ms. Zacharias. Since Ms. Prahl never gave any rights to Ms. Zacharias, the service mark and copyright claims filed by Ms. Zacharias are legally invalid.

Dick Dickerson is the First Vice President of the Marans Chicken Club USA. As detailed in the document discussed above, Mr. Dickerson is also listed as a general partner on the service mark application filed by Ms. Zacharias in the state of Ohio. As a general partner in that application, Mr. Dickerson has as much legal right to use of the service mark as Ms. Zacharias does herself. As seen in the letter cited here, Mr. Dickerson fully supports the right of the Marans Chicken Club USA to use the logo in any way the club sees fit.

This is a screen shot of a document that can be found through a search of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which is located at: www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm . The document shows that Sally Zacharias has filed a federal copyright claim regarding the logo of the Marans Chicken Club USA. However, as discussed in #1 and #2 above, Ms. Zacharias had no legal authority to file any copyrights concerning this logo, since she was not the designer of the logo and had not been given any rights by the designer.

Additionally, Ms. Zacharias filed her copyright claim on 4/01/09 . As discussed in Section B. #2 below, Donna Prahl -- who is the designer of the logo -- filed a federal copyright of this logo on 3/30/09 . Ms. Prahl's copyright clearly precedes the claim filed by Ms. Zacharias. Further, as discussed in various locations in this document, Ms. Prahl has assigned copyright to Beverley Davis. Mrs. Davis is the president of the Marans Chicken Club USA.

This document shows that Sally Zacharias has registered the name Marans Chicken Club USA as a Fictitious Name in the state of Ohio.

As specified in Ohio Code Title 13, Chapter 1329, Section 1, subsection 2: "'Fictitious name' means a name used in business or trade that is fictitious and that the user has not registered or is not entitled to register as a trade name".

The registration of a fictitious name does not provide any legal protection against usage of that same name by any other parties, or give any rights to exclusive use of that name. It is not a trade mark, service mark, or copyright. Therefore, the registration by Ms. Zacharias of this fictitious name has no bearing on the legal usage of the same name by the Marans Chicken Club USA.

This is a screen shot of a Federal Trademark document that can be found through a search of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which is located at: www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm . As detailed in the trademark document, the designer of the Marans Chicken Club USA club logo, Donna Prahl, has federally trademarked our logo. Sally Zacharias has no legal authority to use this logo in any way, since she did not design the logo herself and since Ms. Prahl did not assign any usage rights to Ms. Zacharias.

This document is a copy of the Federal Copyright Certificate for the Marans Chicken Club USA logo, registered by Donna Prahl. Ms. Prahl is the designer of the logo, which was chosen by the membership of the club at the conclusion of a logo contest held by the club. As can be seen in the contents of the copyright certificate, Ms. Prahl has assigned rights and privileges for usage of the logo to Mrs. Beverley Davis. Mrs. Davis is the president of the Marans Chicken Club USA. Therefore, the Marans Chicken Club USA holds the legal rights to use of the club logo, as assigned by the designer of the logo.