Monday, November 03, 2008

Mongols MotorCycle Gang Owned by the Government>??

The Mongols Motorcycle Club, or Mongols MC, is based in southern California. It has an estimated 1,000 members, and it has a logo.
A trademarked logo.
According to the U.S. government, it’s also a criminal organization, engaged in everything from drug trafficking to murder; 79 members were named in a recent racketeering indictment.
Yesterday, the government also had a bit of success in a different avenue it is pursuing vis a vis the Mongols MC:
U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper on Wednesday granted an injunction that prohibits gang members, their family members and associates from wearing, licensing, selling or distributing the logo, which typically depicts the profile of a Mongolian warrior wearing sunglasses.
According to the AP, this is “believed to be the first case in the nation in which the government has sought to take control of a gang’s identity — via its logo — through a court order.”
The upshot, as I understand it from the story, is that anything with a Mongols MC logo on it is now subject to seizure. I gather that the “club” or “gang” or whatever it is did in fact go through the legal steps to trademark its logo. But now that logo is, in effect, illegal.