Union Pacific is trying extort money from model train makers

[Anonymous]

1. Charging a royalty for the use of a trademark is very common. A little research on the internet will turn up more cases than you'll ever want to see. If it was illegal, a lot of organizations are breaking the law. In fact, one site (http://www.ipresearch.com/book_trademarks.html) has a graph from the book 'Royalty Rates for Trademarks & Copyrights' that indicates the most common royalty rates are 11% and 19%, much greater than UP's 3% !
2. From the U.S Patent and Trademark Office's web site, where else? I suggest you try to verify information before questioning it, especially when it's so easy to do so. I remember looking at the applications for the M-K-T and Texas Pacific RR trademarks, among others.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by billkamery

1. Charging a royalty for the use of a trademark is very common. A little research on the internet will turn up more cases than you'll ever want to see. If it was illegal, a lot of organizations are breaking the law. In fact, one site (http://www.ipresearch.com/book_trademarks.html) has a graph from the book 'Royalty Rates for Trademarks & Copyrights' that indicates the most common royalty rates are 11% and 19%, much greater than UP's 3% !
2. From the U.S Patent and Trademark Office's web site, where else? I suggest you try to verify information before questioning it, especially when it's so easy to do so. I remember looking at the applications for the M-K-T and Texas Pacific RR trademarks, among others.

I just checked the US Patent and Trademark Offices web site and yes you are right UP does own some of their predisesor's trademarks. HOWEVER the reason why UP owns them is because UP applied for use of the trademarks after they had originally expired. It is interesting to note that I personally could have applied for ownership of these emblems had I applied for them before December 31, 2002. At any rate UP does not own these emblems because they bought out the fallen flags in question, they own the emblems because they took advantage of trademark law by reapplying for the given trademarks for the sole purpose of EXTORTING money from model train manufactures. You know if UP wanted to, they could buy the trademarks of ALL fallen flag railroads. This is obviously a move on the part of UP to insert itself into the model railroad industry to skim an undeserved profit. I also think that the use of trademark law in this manner is questionable at best, it has already been stated in this thread that these emblems have been free to use by model train manufactures for so long that it is a little late to start a precident for charging licensing fees now.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of the legal merits or lack of same, IMHO, where UP has realy shot themselves in the foot on this has been the public face that they have put on it.

The 2 UP PR types that I have heard quoted on this, a Mr. Turner and a Ms. Blackwell have really come off looking bad on this with their rather blunt pronouncements such as "Get used to it" and "They owe us money". Not a real good way to make your case with the public, but typical of the arrogance that has permeated UP's entire history.

[cacole]

United Parcel Service has been going through this for several years, too, by refusing to allow anyone to model their logo and threatening lawsuits against manufacturers who attempt to model UPS trucks, trailers, etc. Look at the models that purport to be of UPS trucks and trailers -- they have NO UPS LOGO on them. I have some HO-scale truck models that were made in China. They are the same shape and color as a UPS truck, but the lettering on them is "USP" to skirt the UPS copyright issue.

What's really pathetic about Union Pacific, though, is their attempt to charge for railroad names that have not been used for many, many years. Think about it -- this means that no one can use "Central Pacific" without paying UP a percentage now, because Central Pacific was the railroad that built part of the transcontinental rail line back in the 1800s. Central Pacific ultimately became the Southern Pacific, so UP now owns that name? I don't think so. The copyright on the CP name should have ended many years ago.

[Anonymous]

It now appears that CSX is following the lead of Uncle Pete in the "extortion" racket.
According to the information on the Nickle Plate Historical Society forum, CSX is looking into not only demanding money for use of the Chessie Cat logo, but all of the fallen flags it has absorbed, including NYC and PRR!!! It's time to bring back ALPS printers so we can buy undec cars and say to h---- with the corporate greed heads. Or maybe some of us can get together and buy the rights to our favorite roads.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ken1047

It now appears that CSX is following the lead of Uncle Pete in the "extortion" racket.
According to the information on the Nickle Plate Historical Society forum, CSX is looking into not only demanding money for use of the Chessie Cat logo, but all of the fallen flags it has absorbed, including NYC and PRR!!! It's time to bring back ALPS printers so we can buy undec cars and say to h---- with the corporate greed heads. Or maybe some of us can get together and buy the rights to our favorite roads.

They can't do PRR or NYC because NS will throw a fit.

[Anonymous]

"Ive got an idea".........Why don't we all(model railroaders)just SUE the UP,and the CSXT?BNSFfan.

[Anonymous]

[8D]BNSF ALL THE WAY!!![:D]

U.P. management [tdn] stinks

[EL PARRo]

I have to say that I totally agree with ACL Fan. On a slighty different note, I'd like to remind people just how small this royalty is. From UP's own website: "on a $10 item royalty rates are pennies." At that rate, a locomotive that costs $150 would have about $.25-.50 in royalties. Any model railroad company could EASILY absorb that. cacole said that he saw an ad in MR for a Kato locomotive, and the UP version was $10 more than the others. If that is the case, then it seems that Kato, and probably other manufacturers, are using this royalty as an excuse to "extort" money from model railroaders.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by EL PARRo

I have to say that I totally agree with ACL Fan. On a slighty different note, I'd like to remind people just how small this royalty is. From UP's own website: "on a $10 item royalty rates are pennies." At that rate, a locomotive that costs $150 would have about $.25-.50 in royalties. Any model railroad company could EASILY absorb that. cacole said that he saw an ad in MR for a Kato locomotive, and the UP version was $10 more than the others. If that is the case, then it seems that Kato, and probably other manufacturers, are using this royalty as an excuse to "extort" money from model railroaders.

Actually its its something like $3.75 which is still not much.

[EL PARRo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dougal
Actually its its something like $3.75 which is still not much.

My bad. But you're right. That still is not much.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bilby2k

*** Davidson is the CEO of Union Pacific. Such an exalted position is not achieved without a history of efficiency and innovative thinking.
I cannot think of a more splendidly innovative and efficient method of destroying over a century of public goodwill by this staggeringly avaricious demand for a "royalty" fee from railway modellers and their children for using the logo of Union Pacific et al !
I for one will be repainting all my UP stock with my own private logo!
Does he not realise that the tens of thousands of models worldwide with UP logos are walking adverts for his Company?
As an Australian, I see this as just another shining example of the infamous Corporate Greed of the USA. What a prat!
EMAIL YOUR COMMENTS TO *** [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bilby2k

*** Davidson is the CEO of Union Pacific. Such an exalted position is not achieved without a history of efficiency and innovative thinking.
I cannot think of a more splendidly innovative and efficient method of destroying over a century of public goodwill by this staggeringly avaricious demand for a "royalty" fee from railway modellers and their children for using the logo of Union Pacific et al !
I for one will be repainting all my UP stock with my own private logo!
Does he not realise that the tens of thousands of models worldwide with UP logos are walking adverts for his Company?
As an Australian, I see this as just another shining example of the infamous Corporate Greed of the USA. What a prat!
EMAIL YOUR COMMENTS TO *** [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

UP is destorying a hobby, plane and simple, and we as model train fans have to band together to stop this B-S. First they took over some fine railroads, then thy dont have a clu on how to run a railroad, then they do this crap? Folks, they should chang it from Union Pacific to Enron Pacific![:(!]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bilby2k

*** Davidson is the CEO of Union Pacific. Such an exalted position is not achieved without a history of efficiency and innovative thinking.
I cannot think of a more splendidly innovative and efficient method of destroying over a century of public goodwill by this staggeringly avaricious demand for a "royalty" fee from railway modellers and their children for using the logo of Union Pacific et al !
I for one will be repainting all my UP stock with my own private logo!
Does he not realise that the tens of thousands of models worldwide with UP logos are walking adverts for his Company?
As an Australian, I see this as just another shining example of the infamous Corporate Greed of the USA. What a prat!
EMAIL YOUR COMMENTS TO *** [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

As far as I am concerned, UP needs to go to HELL and be ripped apart, and the old names come back

[Anonymous]

Hey, I am not going to let this Jack *** stop me from enjoying a hobby. I think he will be broght down by a corpate swatt team real soon.

[wairoa]

I am done with UP. Sure it may be legal for them to charge but I think it stinks. This is nothing more than greed for greeds sake. I hope they go bust and NS will take them over (not likely I know).

[Roadtrp]

[#ditto][#ditto][#ditto]

Absolutely!!

I haven't been hanging out here much lately because half of what I see are UP bashing threads. It gets a little stale after a while. Frankly, who gives a rat's butt? If I want UP I'll pay what it costs, if I don't I won't. Just like every other purchasing decision I make.

[jfugate]

I think it was understood in years past by the big RR corps that the model RR biz was "small potatoes".

I think the RR execs in the past understood that any goodwill generated for the railroads by the hobby was almost like free advertising.

They also saw that the hobby manufacturers were often "hand to mouth" and trying to charge for use of their logos, while legally within their right, the ill will it would generate would more than offset any meager income they might get.

There's two basic viewpoints here. Either you:

1. Like people and use money to help them
2. Use people and like money to help you

Seems a key question in any courtroom hearing would be "why now?" With nearly a century of RR modeling history behind us and hundreds of railroads never taking this step in the past, what's the impetous here? Precident plays a major factor in court cases and I would think the precident of a century of goodwill to the hobby counts for something.

[Anonymous]

Just reading about this UP thing.
Sitting over here in europe and see US lawyers sueing you all to a crazy world.
Where are the free america?
I run Souther Pacific model train and now understand that I have too pay UP if a get a model of a SP F7 dating from 1949!!!
I was thinking too order one of this new nice looking "UP Veranda turbine" as my first UP model, but never, never now.

I hope UP get too it senses soon.

ps. Just wonder, if I paint UP on a undec boxcar, do I have to pay UP some cent too not violate some US law?

[Jetrock]

The free america is over there on the other side of that sign marked "PRIVATE PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING!"

I see THE LAW bandied about quite a bit...one thing to keep in mind is that segregation laws were also THE LAW OF THE LAND in their time, and it was only people's willingness to break those unjust laws that got them repealed.

[brothaslide]

From a corporate standpoint - Who knows what will happen when a new CEO is voted in and a new management team is put in place; when ever that happens and it will eventually. Someone with good common sense in UP management might just dismiss the whole licensing thing or at least just require that model manufactures stick to UP logo/color requirements, etc. with no money required.

So don't divorce yourself from UP, things always change.

[Anonymous]

A couple of points:

1. What about Amtrak? All of the Walthers Amtrak stuff is a "registered trademark of the National Railroad Passenger Corperation." If you look real closely at some of the newer stuff, you can see the little registered trademark sign on the model. It really detracts for the image, if you know what I mean.

2. I like the UP and support the legislation that gives them the right to do this, but why us? The royalty would be pennies.

3. Now model companies (AHEM!...WALTHERS!) who have already upped their price on everything else because of supposed production cost increases have another excuse to charge us even more. For example, the UP centerbeam flatcar that came out about 1.5-2 years ago at $19.98. It should be noted that the centerbeam model's (all roadnames) price was upped from $12.98 around the same time. How can anybody justify paying 20 bucks for something that used to cost 13 but is still the exact same model. Keep in mind that this whole deal came up way before this trademark deal.

4. I think the issue hear is spite. Somebody somewhere in the MR industry must have done something to really, really, really, really, really tick off UP to the point where they would start doing this. Has anybody considered this?

[philnrunt]

schmo6 - I definitely agree about the higher price with no improvement in quality. Seems like that is one of the things that manufactuers do these days.
If you improve a kit, like Athearn Genesis, I understand a higher price, but when it's the same kit as always, how can you justify a huge price increase?
I guess you buy a few museum quality rtrs, then fill out the roster with blue boxes.

[Anonymous]

The Union Pacific claims Athearn and Lionel are trading on the "goodwill" the Union Pacific has worked for with the public. In that case we know UP is lying because they never ever do anything to produce "goodwill". They are the nastiest of the nasty. They can't get a train across the western half of the country on any sort of schedule but they can take the time to harrass model railroaders.

They run the worst steam trips, always one way and sometimes they just dump you off in a field somewhere.

Too bad they claim to control the rights to the SP,WP,CNW and MoPac Katy heralds because otherwise they could keep that shield!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bilby2k

*** Davidson is the CEO of Union Pacific. Such an exalted position is not achieved without a history of efficiency and innovative thinking.
I cannot think of a more splendidly innovative and efficient method of destroying over a century of public goodwill by this staggeringly avaricious demand for a "royalty" fee from railway modellers and their children for using the logo of Union Pacific et al !
I for one will be repainting all my UP stock with my own private logo!
Does he not realise that the tens of thousands of models worldwide with UP logos are walking adverts for his Company?
As an Australian, I see this as just another shining example of the infamous Corporate Greed of the USA. What a prat!
EMAIL YOUR COMMENTS TO *** [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

I agree with Frisco! UPs reputation has realy gone to pot. They cant do anything right the first time! They have almost bright the entire rail network in the nation to a halt after they merged the SP and CN&W. I pray and hope that the feds order UP to divest itself of ALL railroads merged after 1980. UP is aragent and very agreseve
and it needs to stop! They must have some pretty heave fines like toxic clean up that they need to soak every penny for. They must want to killing there reputation, if fact they love doing it![soapbox]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bilby2k

*** Davidson is the CEO of Union Pacific. Such an exalted position is not achieved without a history of efficiency and innovative thinking.
I cannot think of a more splendidly innovative and efficient method of destroying over a century of public goodwill by this staggeringly avaricious demand for a "royalty" fee from railway modellers and their children for using the logo of Union Pacific et al !
I for one will be repainting all my UP stock with my own private logo!
Does he not realise that the tens of thousands of models worldwide with UP logos are walking adverts for his Company?
As an Australian, I see this as just another shining example of the infamous Corporate Greed of the USA. What a prat!
EMAIL YOUR COMMENTS TO *** [e-mail]