Everyone’s atwitter (no, literally, I saw it from like three people on Twitter) about the absolutely fabulous response from Kurt Denke, president of Blue Jeans Cable, to a cease-and-desist order from legendarily litigious Monster Cable. I urge you to read it in its entirety, as the writing, the sheer scope of his demands, and the breathtaking awesomeness of his righteous fury are something serious to behold. Some excerpts:

Take, for example, the patent you mark as Exhibit B.  The connector shown there is substantially different from the Tartan connectors in every respect, unless one ignores design specifics and focuses on the core attributes of the connector which are dictated by function.  If your view of Exhibit B is that it is to be construed broadly enough as to encompass the Tartan connector, it is very hard to imagine that there is such a thing as a solder-assembly style RCA plug which is not similarly, in your view, encompassed by this patent.   And, needless to say, it is very hard to imagine that any court would ever adopt such a view of the patent’s scope; if you file on this sort of basis, you are in Rule 11 frivolous-claim territory.

And the most awesome gauntlet-throwing of all, which comes after a long description of Denke’s legal bona fides:

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. 

THIS. IS. SPARTA!!!!!

Filed under: Information, News, cease-and-desist, Monster, trademark