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There is a difference between land takings, real estate law, intellectual information and copyrights. Those examples cannot be used in this case seeing that they are based on state, not federal law. Also patent and copyright law is a very specific area of law which has strict guidelines, which is why those lawyers in that area of expertise make more in charging for one hour than most of us do all week. You simply cannot compare those examples to copyright law, you can only compare other cases involving copyright law to our case.
If you really want to be concerned about LXA and copyrights, I would be MUCH more afraid of the fact that many of LXA items, products and publications have incorrect or no copyright notice, which is much more dangerous than someone stealing it by our not "defending" it.
The Disney example is a little better, however, it still would not hold up in comparison to this case.
Simply buying a LXA shirt and saying you are a LXA is not a copyright infringement. If I wanted to I could get 20 guys together to wear LXA shirts and call ourselves a club there would be nothing LXA could do about.
The real path to argue would be the following: That by using the name LXA, the underground chapters were able to profit from the use of LXA and it's copyrights by saying they were associated with the national fraternity. Then we could sue for damages.
I did a quick LexisNexis and Westlaw search on copyright law and could not find anything that stated the terms "aggressively defend" in relation to losing a copyright in either statutory or common law. Maybe one of you gentleman could point me to a more specific case or section of copyright law so I could further research this. I think alot of you may be a little misguided by the actual intent of it.
In the end, it all depends on what you want accomplished. Do you want HQ to spend tens of thousands upon thousands of dollars on a decent copyright attorney to sue underground chapters for infringement? Or would you like to go about it in a different way. Perhaps a 6-12 monthy probation period to evaluate them becoming a full fledged chapter if they wanted to?
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