Paul Cudmore Charlottetown UPEI spokesperson named in lawsuit
Paul Cudmore, UPEI Access-Ability Committee member, sued for trademark infringement and unethical business practices
UPEI Access-Ability Committee spokesperson Paul Cudmore has been named in a lawsuit filed August 6th, 2009 in the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island for copyright infringement and unethical business practices.
The lawsuit, filed by PEI Disability Alert Inc., alleges that Paul Cudmore of Charlottetown PEI has infringed Disability Alert’s trademark without permission by passing himself off as Disability Alert.
The claim also alleges that Cudmore has engaged in “false, misleading and deceptive” business practices by passing himself off.
Also named as a co-defendant is Michael Bryanton, of Charlottetown doing business as Hampshire Hosting. Bryanton is alleged to have registered and holds the domain names which use the trademarks of PEI Disability Alert Inc.
“We are just a small, not-for-profit charitable organization,” said Stephen Pate of Disability Alert “but we have to protect our name from people who want to use it in a deceptive and unethical manner.”
“People should not represent themselves with other organization’s trademarks. Coke is Coke and the Canadian Cancer Society is the Canadian Cancer Society” said Pate. “Cudmore and Bryanton should not be using our name since neither of them is a member of PEI Disability Alert. Cudmore’s insistence on passing himself off with our name makes us wonder about the groups he belongs to.”
Paul Cudmore, defendant in lawsuit, featured in Canada Games promotional photo as 6,000th volunteer
Along with his role on the UPEI Access-Ability Committee, Cudmore is a high-profile volunteer at the 2009 Canada Games, a board member of the PEI Canadian Paraplegics Association and NEADS National Educational Association of Disabled Students.
“Volunteers like Paul Cudmore, who was the 6,000th person to sign up, are so important,” said Canada Games President Joe Spriet Games Volunteers Ready for Action
Cudmore and Bryanton have 20 days to file a defense in the action.
PEI Disability Alert is a non-profit research and advocacy organization. Formed in 2006 by Stephen Pate, it was incorporated on PEI in July 2007. It is well known in PEI for publicly advocating about disability issues.
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License – NJN Network Inc.
sockmonkey
Pate, you are completely out of your mind.
If PEI Disability Alert were a respectable company that could take itself seriously, it would have simply asked Mr. Cudmore to cease using the logo or would have sought other methods to have this issue dealt with. Instead, your organization decided to file this bullshit lawsuit, tying up the time of serious legal matters and abusing our legal system, as well as the reputation of a man working to defend the rights of those who are disabled.
You’ve proven, yet again, that you cannot be taken seriously.
Scott
I would think anyone serious like Cudmore would have checked to see if someone else owned the logo or had a trademark before the used it.
Doing this is like using the Golden Arches and when McDonald’s sues you…you stand up and say oops I didn’t know anyone else owned those.
Please…the more information that comes out on this the more this looks like scam by Cudmore and Bryanton for gawd knows what reason except maybe to try and cause Pate some problems or worse yet for finanical gain for themselves.
I recall Bryanton was regular poster on another message board in PEI and posted under the name hhost and was thought by some of Liberal Posters to be expert on everything. One would think an expert would know he couldn;t use someone else’s logo
Unless there was alterior motives for using the logo.
This is excellent case can’t wait to see the defenses these two file.
PEI Disability Alert
We cannot comment on this case beyond the court documents, which are open to the public.
However, the assumption we did not ask Cudmore to stop using our name is incorrect.
The incident was reported in these pages and others.
We do not go to the cost and effort of a lawsuit until we felt every other avenue had been exhausted.