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Committee Report: Mark Protection Committee
Minutes of the meeting of the Mark Protection Committee
The Millenium Philcon - September 2nd 2001
Meeting held in Room 103B of the Pennsylvania Convention Centre
[Minutes taken by Cheryl Morgan]
Called to order
In the absence of a chairman (Randall Shepherd’s term on the committee
having expired), the meeting was called to order by Kevin Standlee.
Minutes of last meeting
Gary Feldbaum apologised for not having minutes from the previous meeting
at Chicon 2000.
Elections
Don Eastlake offered to serve as chairman. There being no other candidates
he was elected and he immediately took over chair of the meeting from
Mr Standlee.
Ben Yalow proposed that all other officers be re-elected. There being
no objection, they were so elected.
Treasurer’s report
Scott Dennis was unable to attend due to Dealers’ Room commitments.
He was asked to produce a report and send it to Mr Feldbaum.
New business
’Zanne Labonville pointed out that there was no acknowledgement
of WSFS service marks in the Millennium Philcon program book. Mr Feldbaum,
on behalf of The Millennium Philcon, said that the convention management
had tried to get the appropriate acknowledgements in place and apologised
for it not happening.
Ms Labonville also asked about the SciFi Channel’s practice of
running a straw poll in advance of the Hugo Awards without acknowledging
our ownership of the mark. Mr Yalow pointed out that they were advertising
our service mark and were correctly associating it with our award, which
was good for establishing the mark. Mr Eastlake suggested that we write
a letter to them politely requesting that they include a service mark
acknowledgement. He volunteered to produce the letter.
Mr Eastlake says the committee needs to make progress with things that
it had intended to do last year. These included investigating the current
state of our marks’ protection in the USA, looking into hiring
a new trademark letter, and investigating the use of Internet domains
that may infringe upon our marks. Randall Shepherd had been looking
into all of these, but it was unclear what progress he had made. Mr
Eastlake volunteered to talk to Mr Shepherd and to carry the matter
forward.
Ken Smookler reported that he had applied for registration of all six
WSFS marks in Canada and that he very much hoped that would be completed
before Torcon 3, snail-paced bureaucracy permitting. He anticipated
the cost being between CDN2K and CDN4K. Mr Smookler also volunteered
to register the necessary Internet domain names in Canada.
Mr Boucher said there was nothing new to report from Australia, but
that moves were afoot to extend state-based mark protection to a federal
basis, and that our registrations in the State of Victoria might therefore
soon become nationwide.Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on the Thursday of ConJosé, probably
in the Fairmont hotel. Mr Standlee volunteered to ensure the meeting
was well publicized.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 11:25.
Minutes of the meeting of the Mark Protection Committee
ConJosé – August 29 2002
McEnery Convention Centre, San José
Present: Scott Dennis, Treasurer, Gary Keith Feldbaum, Secretary, Ken
Smookler, Kevin Standlee, Stephen Boucher, Cheryl Morgan, George Flynn,
Ruth Sachter, Sue Francs, Ben Yalow
Also, noted to be present: John Lorentz, Lynn Anderson. Other people
were present but were not identified.
In the absence of Chairman Don Eastlake, the meeting was called to order
at 7:02PM by Kevin Standlee. Unanimous consent was given for Mr Standlee
to preside over this meeting.
It was noted that the terms of elected representatives Stephen Boucher,
Gary Keith Feldbaumand Sue Francis would expire at the end of this meeting,
as well as appointed representative ‘Zanne Labonneville.
The Secretary expressed his appreciation to Cheryl Morgan for taking
the minutes of the second meeting at the Millennium Philcon. The minutes
taken by Cheryl Morgan were read and approved as read.
Mr Standlee gave notice that the next meeting of the Committee would
be held at the conclusion of the Sunday meeting of the main Business
Meeting of WSFS, in the same room as that meeting, time permitting.
If not feasible an alternate time and place of this Committee would
be announced at that meeting.
The Treasurer made the verbal report that there was a balance of approximately
USD3,800.00, in the accounts, and that the computer on which the historical
reports resided had been stolen. Mr Dennis asked for assistance in locating
copies of any financial report issued at Chicon. It was noted that there
were several Worldcon committees which had not yet been asked to provide
funds, including Chicon, the Millennium Philcon and Aussiecon. It was
also noted that it was traditional for Worldcon committees located outside
of the US to hold funds in lieu of transmitting them to the Mark Protection
Committee and to use those funds in support of the efforts of this committee.
Ken Smookler reported that efforts are continuing with respect to registration
of the marks in Canada. He estimates that approximately CDN2,000 to
2,500 will be expended, funded by ConAdian, in support of these efforts.
The subject of registering domains in Canada was discussed. It was decided
unanimously to register worldcon.ca at this time.
There was a discussion concerning the use of the term ‘worldcon’
as it related to Worldcom. Stephen Boucher moved to take all reasonable
steps to prevent infringing uses of the marks at science fiction conventions.
Sue Francis seconded the motion, which was adopted unanimously after
discussion.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:31PM.
Respectfully submitted
Gary Keith Feldbaum
Report of the WSFS Nitpicking
and Flyspecking Committee
The committee reports below the compilation of items from the 2001
Worldcon, together with the collected items from earlier Worldcons.
The committee continues to use a definition of "likely to continue to
have effect for more than a year" as "continuing". Items appearing with
a "BM" in them were motions passed by the Business Meeting while items
with a "CH" in them are rulings or opinions of the Chair.
The committee intends to make this full cumulative report available
through its web page.
At San Antonio, the committee was charged with codifying the "customs
and usages of WSFS" in light of the recent constitutional amendment
which refers to such matters.
As a first step in this research, Tim Illingworth & Pat McMurray
have OCRed and corrected the WSFS Business Meeting minutes for 1974,
and 1979-1992. 1993-date are available elsewhere (through Saul Jaffe).
Minutes for all Business Meetings from 1979 to date are now available
to any interested party.
These minutes are currently held in Word 6 format, and should be available
from Tim’s web site (www.smof.demon.co.uk) Real Soon Now. The 1979
minutes are a report constructed from Ben Yalow's copy of the agenda
of the Main Meeting with contemporaneous annotations.
As an extract from these documents, a list has been prepared of all
amendments to the WSFS Constitution and Standing Rules proposed since
1979, together with their amendment and disposal. The abbreviation ‘OTC’
has been used to keep the document length within almost reasonable bounds.
Only the text of Louis Epstein’s "Commonwealth Zones" motion, proposed
and OTCed in 1989, is missing; if anyone has a copy, the committee would
like to hear from them.
An update of the Annotated Standing Rules (originally prepared by the
Standing Rules Working Group in 1996) has also been prepared.
Pursuant to BM-1994-1, www.wsfs.org has been updated, and copies of
documents have been supplied to Saul Jaffe for the SF-Lovers archive.
Pursuant to BM-2001-1, the committee has reminded ConJosé of
the requirement for legibility of badges, and hopes that ConJosé
has noticed.
The committee is willing to serve for another year.
Don Eastlake
Tim Illingworth
Kevin Standlee
The NP&FSC has no new motions for the Business Meeting.
Report of the Hugo Eligibility
Rest of World Committee
The HEROW committee reports the following two motions:
Short Title: Throw a Blanket Over It
Moved, To extend for one year, based on limited availability,
as authorized by section 3.4, the eligibility of all works that:
- Would otherwise qualify for a "specific work" 2002 Hugo
Award (sections 3.3.1 through 3.3.6 inclusive);
- Did not receive sufficient nominations to appear on the Final
Ballot for the 2002 Hugo Awards;
- Have not been published in the USA as of 31 January 2002; and
- Have not previously had their eligibility extended by resolution
of WSFS;
This motion extends eligibility for the Hugo Award; therefore, it requires
a 3/4 vote.
This motion is the same as was passed last year, and extends the eligibility
for non-US-published works, on the basis of limited distribution.
If the above motion passes, the committee moves the adoption of the
following motion:
Short Title: We Need Another HEROW
Moved, To continue the Hugo Eligibility for the Rest of the
World (HEROW) Committee as previously charged, with a new Chair and
members appointed by the Chair of the Business Meeting, and with the
Chair of the HEROW Committee authorized to add additional members to
the committee.
Note that the current Chair of the HEROW Committee will not accept
reappointment as Chair of the committee, although he will continue to
work with the committee if it is renewed, because he has too many other
things that tie up too much time.
Ben Yalow
HEROW Chairman
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