My run in with Taylor Martinez' dad Casey & his licensing company

JonDMiller

JonDMiller

Publisher/Founder
I was just reading a few items on T-Magic's dad having a licensing deal with Nebraska and his son being protected by it, and the stir that is causing on twitter.

When I read that his dad owns the license to the term 'Corn Fed', that struck a chord.

When I launched this site last October, I was just getting my arms around the capabilities of the message boards, and hadn't reigned in spammers. There were four or five people that signed up that were spamming this site with links to the 'Corn Fed' gear.

So I looked them up online, and emailed a guy named Casey Martinez (had no idea of his relation to Taylor, or no idea who Taylor was at that time) and asked him to stop spamming my site. He said he didn't know who was doing it, but would put a stop to it.

After that, I never heard back from him, nor did I need to, and the spamming stopped.

Small world.

One more thing to add...someone I know in Des Moines was marketing some apparel locally in Iowa, and was using the term Corn Fed. He did not know it was copyrighted. He quickly heard from Martinez's organization...which of course, is wise practice, you have to protect your copyright...so I was pleased when Casey 'put a stop' to the spamming of my site.
 
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That whole licensing thing always strikes me as parasitic, and pretty sleazy. Taking words and phrases that have been in the public domain for decades and somehow 'owning' them and forcing people to pay you to use them? That's messed up.
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However, I am going to license the word 'bince' and force OK4P to fork over beau coup bucks after every post. :D
 




VintageHawkeye said:
That whole licensing thing always strikes me as parasitic, and pretty sleazy. Taking words and phrases that have been in the public domain for decades and somehow 'owning' them and forcing people to pay you to use them? That's messed up.
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However, I am going to license the word 'bince' and force OK4P to fork over beau coup bucks after every post. :D
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Maybe we are thinking of different licensing agreements, but the one between Casey and NU has to deal with sports merchandising, t-shirts I believe. While the relationship is weird and questionable at the very least, I don't think that it is particularly sleazy.
 


74Hunter said:
Maybe we are thinking of different licensing agreements, but the one between Casey and NU has to deal with sports merchandising, t-shirts I believe. While the relationship is weird and questionable at the very least, I don't think that it is particularly sleazy.
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Perhaps I misunderstood the scope.
So if I ping jesterapparel and ask him to make up a t-shirt for me that includes the words 'Corn Fed' and in relation to Iowa football, will I or won't I have to pay some sort of fee or tax to pappy martinez for the 'right' to use common English words?
 




I think I'll copyright the phrase "bullsh**." That way I get paid everytime somebody reacts to the fact that some guy claims to own the phrase "corn fed."
 


VintageHawkeye said:
Perhaps I misunderstood the scope.
So if I ping jesterapparel and ask him to make up a t-shirt for me that includes the words 'Corn Fed' and in relation to Iowa football, will I or won't I have to pay some sort of fee or tax to pappy martinez for the 'right' to use common English words?
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That is something I cannot fully answer, but I don't think that he has the rights to the term "Corn Fed." My understanding (which could be wrong) is that he had some sort of t-shirt and apparel business named Corn Fed, and it sold Husker athletic merchandise.

The agreement was to give 10% of all proceeds made back to NU. Reportedly, NU has made about $500 from the agreement.
 




VintageHawkeye said:
Perhaps I misunderstood the scope.
So if I ping jesterapparel and ask him to make up a t-shirt for me that includes the words 'Corn Fed' and in relation to Iowa football, will I or won't I have to pay some sort of fee or tax to pappy martinez for the 'right' to use common English words?
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Has any knucklescraper from the NCAA or Nebraska checked the USPTO website, because I just did and while Casey is the registrant, Taylor Martinez is the last listed owner, meaning it looks like there was some sort of assignment. Don't know if this will work, but here is the link:

TESS -- Error

This brings up a slew of questions. Is 10% market for these royalty agreements? What is the royalty based on, retail or wholesale? Sounds pretty light to me, if it was only 10% GDR would probably sell officially licensed gear. Dang it, why was GDR banned, this is actually a topic I would like his input on.

As to the enforceability of the trademark, given the dozens of derivative Iowa shirts I have seen with this stuff on them, I would suspect Mr. Martinez would have a hard time claiming the mark has not become diluted, as well as an uphill battle if GDR was selling corn fed shirts pre-registration. It's a similar issue as those "Who Dat" shirts the NFL was trying to put an end to before the Super Bowl. It's also why schools like Wisconsin and KU sue high schools that use their logos, because if you don't enforce your mark, you can lose it.

If this is legit, what is stopping every single player from trademarking his name in some font for use on jerseys and t-shirts and then entering into licensing agreements with the school whereby they pay the schools a 10% royalty to sell their own jerseys? Iowa should join into this game so we can pay our ballplayers through a back door arrangement. Coker could have made tens of thousands of dollars off of Tuesday night's game. I would front 50 grand to start that operation if someone knows of a textile plant in China that could get me a few thousand cheap jerseys. I have to call the Delaware Secretary of State and reserve the name "OK4P Bankruptcy Remote Judgment Proof Nonidentifiable Owners Under the Table Payments to Players, LLC."
 




I wonder if the Iowa Corn Growers Association who have in the past year used the term Corn Fed on their marketing materials have had any contact from Casey Martinez.
 




Hawk4Life25 said:
I wonder if the Iowa Corn Growers Association who have in the past year used the term Corn Fed on their marketing materials have had any contact from Casey Martinez.
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There's an "Iowa Corn Fed" mark that is owned by the Iowa Corn Growers Promotion Board. They filed in 2009, Martinez filed in 2007 per the USPTO website.

I wonder if GDR is still selling those shirts that say corn fed and have the outline of the state on them.
 




74Hunter said:
Looking at the website http://www.*******.com/index.aspx , this kindo f seems like much to do about nothing. The shirts look reasonably nice, though. Maybe he does have some trademark or copyright to the words "Corn Fed."
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There's no doubt he has a trademark in the phrase "corn fed." Taylor owns it per the USPTO website. Here is the ownership information:

Owner(REGISTRANT) Martinez, Casey INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 2180 Reservoir Drive Norco CALIFORNIA 92860 (LAST LISTED OWNER) MARTINEZ, TAYLOR INDIVIDUAL 2 CAMEL POINT DR. LAGUNA BEACH CALIFORNIA 32651


There needs to be clear confirmation that the terms are market.
 






It must have been pretty bad if Jon had to asterisk out the name of the website. I could see the headline now, posted on the eve of the first Iowa-Nebraska game:

Iowa Hero Sues Taylor Martinez And Father For Unauthorized Spamming

Just a little something extra for Taylor to think about during the game.
 


lol

I think I might have axed *******...lets see

Yup, I put that in a banned words list to stop the spamming when they didn't relent at first.
 


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