You are hereWhat is "Urban Assault", and the hubbub surrounding a bi-weekly urban ride.
What is "Urban Assault", and the hubbub surrounding a bi-weekly urban ride.
The fellas from the Wednesday Urban Assault Ride finally spilled the beans over what I was so riled up about recently. The short story is that the organizer of the local ride received a nicely worded cease-and-desist notice from one of the employees of AdventureFit, the company who does the organizing and promotion for the New Belgium Urban Assault Ride.
AdventureFit seems to have a trademark on "Urban Assault" as it pertains to:
"Entertainment services, namely the planning, organization and production of athletic competitions involving individuals or teams racing to checkpoints in an urban environment; entertainment servcies, namely planning, organizing and producing competitive sporting event containing multiple sports, teams, modes of transportation, and a format that requires teams to reach checkpoints and complete and physical challenges at each checkpoint."
Wait a minute. Does that description sound ANYTHING like what these guys do? I know most corporate shills don't have much brainpower beyond what it took them to ape their way along through an MBA degree, so I figured I'd present it in a chart for their benefit:
I could go on but this is ridiculous. Is anyone actually confused about what "Urban Assault" is besides these guys? Now I know what you may think, "Ok Jason, OTHER than that goofy 80's army movie with the guy from Groundhog Day and the fat dude, who else even USES the term 'Urban Assault'?" Well, lets see:
- Microsoft PC Game from 1998
- Line of Motorcycle Sport Videos/DVDs
- About five million paintball-related stores, fields, videos, student events, kids camps and even a couple old trademarks of their own. Hell, this definition of the words has even gone global!
- A World Reknowned Professional In-Line Skating Team (yes, really. They even own the UrbanAssault.com domain name)
- Mountain biking in an urban environment! This is the original meaning of the word combo as far as bicycles are concerned, and the one that most aligns with what the WAR crew does every other week.
To take this a step further, lets look at the origins of the term "Urban Assault Ride". Here's a great example from an old newspaper article that includes the first known use of the term "Urban Assault Ride", which is the EXACT term that the Adventure Fit crew have decided to misappropriate for their racing event. What sort of event does this article describe to y'all? Something like what Adventure Fit would like you to associate with the words, or something like what the WAR guys do?
Why do I even care? Because I think what the AdventureFit people are doing is shameful, and I wanted to call them out on it. My words aren't going to change anything, but I wanted to be on record stating that I think the guys behind this lowly legal maneuver are a bunch of schmucks. Unfortunately in this case they're schmucks that have the weight of corporate legal might behind them, and who are we lowly bikers to oppose THAT? Wonder if Josh and his crew are going to go after all the other people who used "Urban Assault" before he did, now that he knows his fellow cyclists are so easy to push around. Go get 'em, tiger.
Fuck this noise, I brought my 1x1 to work today, so I think I'm going to go on a lunch-time URBAN ASSAULT RIDE. South Austin, here I come...
seriously. im sure that their name being linked to anti- local bicycling efforts would be taken pretty seriously.
2000/05/02.
1997/04/27.
Of course, simple `Urban assault' references are even easier to find, going back further.
Not that any of this may be particularly useful, as it's not a patent, it's a trademark, and prior art isn't quite as useful, though it might help show that the trademark was `genericized' even before they applied for it.