Example of hams harassment by F1SHS: online fundraising

We find this e-mail from F1SHS particularly despicable and evil. See for yourself: a ham tries to raise funds online for a repeater to benefit the local ham community. F1SHS sends an e-mail to the fund-raising platform to pretend that his trademark DMR FRANCE was “cleverly imitated” in the sentence “DMR Hytera France” by inserting the word “Hytera” and is asking for the online post to be removed!

Worse: although he has no legal training or experience, he reports his fellow ham radio operators by adding the ad lacks an official declaration and county office approval (which is most likely not true because the author of the fund-raising is not a public entity).

Unfortunately, this trick worked and the fund-raising was removed by the platform administrators !

Translation of the e-mail (the original is on the french page):

From: President DR@F <president@draf.asso.fr>
Date: July 19th 2015 5:09PM
Subject: Counterfeit of our trademark DMR-FRANCE
To: Le Pot Commun <contact@lepotcommun.fr> 

Hello,

I would like to inform you of the counterfeit of our trademark DMR-FRANCE on your site “lepotcommun.fr”.

Our trademark DMR-FRANCE is registered with INPI under the National number 14 4 093 284, which publication is available here:
http://bases-marques.inpi.fr/Typo3_INPI_Marques/getPdf?idObjet=4093284_201441_fmark

In these links, there is a mention to “DMR Hytera France” or “DMR-France” which clearly indicate our trademark cleverly imitated with the word “Hytera”, which is our identity. You can find an explanation on the INPI website here:  http://www.inpi.fr/fr/l-inpi/la-propriete-industrielle/lutter-contre-la-contrefacon/qu-est-ce-qu-une-contrefacon.html
Moreover, these call for public donations do not specify whether they have been authorized by the county office, as required in the law article 91-772 from August 7th 1991.The usage of our trademark doesn’t allow people to know who they are really dealing with and could damage our public image by exposing us to a criminal risk while we are not the ones asking for donations from the public.

I am hereby asking that you remove the aforementioned pages as quickly as possible.

Cordially,


Pierre BERNARD
Association DR@F – Digital Radioamateur France
President
28, rue Jean Bonal – 92250 La Garenne Colombes
Web: http://draf.asso.fr – http://dmr-france.org

Delegation for DMR-MARC network (208 – France)
Contact : president@draf.asso.fr