Is this guy nuts? Does he really think he can do this?
It appears that Radio Shack has copyrighted the very ® symbol itself!
Of course: you are required to go after people if they infringe on your trademark. If you have a trademark and don’t defend it, you lose the trademark. That’s just how trademarks work.
Please read the Nolo links above.
If you want a real quick yet very informative explanation of the trademark/copyright issue, visit:
http://www.madmartian.com/legal/
A friend of mine has a web site where he sells some “monster” type products, and owns a domain name containing the word “monster.”
Monster Cable sends him a cease-and-desist, offers to pay him a pittance for the domain name, and threatens to sue if he doesn’t comply. Sounds very similar to the OP (except they also want to extort the domain name from him).
Being out of work for almost a year and having a lot of time and access to the internet on his hands, he fights back. This page is a record of the correspondance, the arguments he makes, results of other Monster Cable lawsuits over the use of the word “Monster” (Disney settles with them!) and examples of several other similar cases he posts which back him up, etc. These other court decisions certainly point out the exact laws concerning this issue.
In the end, Monster Cable dropped the suit and offered to pay for his attorney fees and his time! Score one for the little guy against the corporate bully.
Yeah but he is threatening people who have designs like “please use caution when…” just for using the word in their designs.