Is it possible to own a month?

I mean, can you call a month "national month of x" and then sue people who mention that it's the national month of x?

Dumb I know. But obviously there's a reason I'm asking...

Last month I wrote a news release in honor of it being the "official month of x". Nothing was being sold. In fact the product itself was up for grabs to anyone who wanted it in honor of that special month. No web forms no requests for feedback. Nothing. If anyone had wanted the product i'd have no idea who got it, who didn't get it. It was a completely free give away.

Anyhow, I received an email today claiming this national month is intelletual property (but no prooof mind you) and notice to remove the mention from my site. I'm no lawyer. So I complied not knowing if this is valid or not. I did ask for clarification though. Hoping they respond because this has me stumped.

Hey, did you know September is now the "official national month of intellectual property law"? I own it. Don't know how, but I'm making public notice that no one can mention this month all year in connection with the "official national month of intellectual property law" without my consent.

[ I'm kidding about september by the way...someone probably already owns it ]

Anyhow, am very curious to know if we each can legally claim ownership to certain months in connection with it being national month of whatever...seeing how we don't personally own the nation nor any months.

Very very strange...

Don't want to make this mistake a second time if it's true. Thanks in advance for the tips or heads up on this one.

Andre
PS: Last time I use a public source for references of national monthly events...

I would ignore them. That's just me though.

They haven't sent you any kind of official notice yet. Email is not considered a legal communication. So they would probably have to start by faxing or mailing a notice to you. And they would probably have to use a lawyer if they wanted to start building a case.

By the time that's over with, they've already spent more money than they'll ever make off having exclusive rights to the month (even here, I doubt it's possible).

So you can finally take the X off your site, and put something reporting the fact that a bogus company came up with a bogus month and then tried to keep anyone else from talking about the month.

Then you can claim 'idiotic publicity stunts' month and present their name as the top runner up of the 'idiotic publicity award'.

Yeah, I'm thinking this is pretty darned 'frivolous' myself. Especially seeing how part of the information I mentioned is specifically public record in the census and the other part McGraw Hill publishes in their annual events guide.

Here's the page that shows the 'official' month of august that I referred to:

McGraw-Hill Professional - Special Months

Hmm...are they going to send a 'remove' request to mcgraw hill, and cc the fbi on that too (as they did in my email)?

Will have to wait to see their clarification before I ignore them though. Much bigger company than me.

After their email arrived I did consider rewording my material to specifically refer to mcgraw hill and the us census. That way the corporation can take it up the matter with those sources.

But that doesn't seem to be a nice thing to do.

Besides, the corporation has some nice things going for it, i'd like them to at least get some milage out of the material i wrote, even if one person there didn't like me mentioning, 'according to one source.... blah blah blah'.

But hey, if they don't want the plug I could easily reword things to give credit where it really belongs: McGraw Hill and Us Census(?). But that doesn't feel right either. Esp if I later find they do have a leg to stand on

Thanks.

I'm no lawyer, but...

sounds like B.S. to me.

If I received a certified letter in the mail from a lawyer it would be a different story, but an email from someone you never heard of about something that sounds ridiculous goes into the same pile as an email from someone in Africa needing me to send them money now.

Yeah, and what's up with the FBI...wouldn't this be a civil case?

Nope. Can't even own a day. If I want to declare December 25th "National Great Green Arkleseizure Day" there's no one who will stop it.

Every day is a saint's day for at least 3-4 saints. Every day, week, and month, is National [fill in the blank] per some stupid comments entered into federal and state legislative records to honor special interest groups ranging from snipe hunters to stammering worm farmers with dyslexia.

-Mike

Reminds me of one vexatious litigant in particular:

Leo Stoller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Keep his "threat" at the very least.

"cc: Santa Barbara County District Attorney
Special Agent in Charge, FBI, San Francisco"

Thanks Mike for the info. Gives peace of mind to know someone in-the-know has given an opinion on the matter. No clue if they think they are sincere or if they are just trying to abuse the system.

I do know that between my online article distribution and my news release, I grabbed at least 591 of the 1,880 listing Google shows for the topic.

This totally buried their 'official' site in google rank. I had no clue that would happen.

Oh. And my content claims seven of the top ten spots on Google's first page for the topic...and 9 of 10 on page two. Much the same dominance sporadically throughout other pages too

And 10/10 on several other pages.

...maybe that's why they are mad...(?)