00:00All right, we start with a banger as today is the deadline for Selville Melville to submit a contract proposal to the TTFA in the ongoing battle of the SoCo Warriors trademark.
00:20Well, just to remind you, last week Melville met with the TTFA and Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Sport, David Nackett, in what was described as a cordial meeting where the Football Association made him an offer.
00:31However, up to news time, no counter-proposal has yet been made to the TTFA.
00:36While they wait, legal expert Dr. Emile Krong is questioning whether the trademark should exist at all.
00:42He argues that the name SoCo Warriors covers an unusually broad range of goods, from tobacco to road paving, and may be revoked, if not used, in those areas.
00:56Trademarks are premised on use.
00:59And in the absence of actually using a trademark for the goods or services for which it is registered, there is a process in which a trademark can be revoked.
01:16If challenged, it would be on the trademark owner to show that the SoCo Warriors trademark has been used for this wide variety of things for a certain period of time.
01:34The prominent attorney also points out the name was already widely used to describe the national team before the trademark was granted, making its validity questionable.
01:44Krong is suggesting that the TTFA may not need to buy the name if it can successfully challenge it.
01:51If it could be shown that by 2006, everyone in the world practically described Trinidad and Tobago's football team as the SoCo Warriors,
02:07and it doesn't even have to be internationally, it could be locally, the local press, the regional press, and so on.
02:14If everyone was using that phrase to describe Trinidad and Tobago's national football team,
02:23then I would suggest that the mark was not properly registered,
02:31which is another ground in which the trademark could be revoked.
02:36I put it to the public, I put it to the TTFA really, whether in fact this trademark is a valid one and should be challenged.
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