Spring Roses of Nations
Posted on November 5, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
I have been aware of this lawsuit for two months.
John Presco
Could James Bond lose the 007 name because of a trademark claim? A legal expert says it’s not that simple
An Austrian real estate developer is going head to head with the owners of the James Bond franchise in an attempt to use the 007 name and the super spy’s famous “Bond, James Bond” catchphrase.
February 20, 2025
His name is Bond, James Bond. But for how long?
The British super spy is at the center of a new trademark case that involves a Dubai-based resort developer’s claim that the owner of the James Bond IP is not using its trademarks, opening up the opportunity for another party to do so.
Austrian businessman Josef Kleindienst filed claims in the U.K. and Europe in an attempt to cancel those trademark registrations and, ultimately, use the character’s famous 007 moniker and catchphrase for a $5 billion resort project.
If these trademark claims are successful, does it mean Bond will lose his 007 status? Will the next iteration of the character not be able to utter his famous catchphrase?
Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University who specializes in intellectual property, says Kleindienst could be successful in canceling those trademark registrations –– but it doesn’t mean much.Related: Glorb is hitting it big with AI-generated SpongeBob raps. But is it legal under copyright law?
Kleindienst’s claims, commonly called “cancellation actions based on non-use,” are based on a foundational element of trademark law.
“In order to have trademark rights, you need to use something as a trademark in connection with specific goods and services,” Roberts says. “Then in order to keep those rights, you need to keep making that use.”
In the U.S. and U.K., if a trademark owner doesn’t use it commercially for at least five years, someone else can challenge a registration and revoke ownership of it. In this case, the challenge is against a broad range of uses, including, vehicles, software and accommodation. It also includes trademark protection of the catchphrase “Bond, James Bond” and the names James Bond, James Bond Special Agent 007 and James Bond 007 used in connection with those goods and services. The Bond trademarks are officially registered to Danjaq, which controls those rights with Eon, the production company that uses the character in films.
More in Law
Roberts says it’s entirely likely that Kleindiesnt could be successful in his cancellation claims. However, getting a trademark registration canceled is one thing; being able to use that trademark yourself is much more complicated.
Danjaq might not have a registration for hotel services, but if it has a trademark registered in a similar category, like restaurant services, Kleindienst could still be found liable for infringement, Roberts says.
Even more of a challenge is the concept of residual goodwill.
“Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s announced that they were moving away from those trademarks,” Roberts says. “Immediately, five other people applied to register Aunt Jemima for pancakes and syrup. Usually, we would say consumers are still going to be confused by that. Even if this other brand isn’t technically using [a trademark] on syrup right now, there’s still this really strong association among consumers.”
This happens in entertainment too. Viacom sued the owner of the Krusty Krab, a restaurant named after the burger shop in “SpongeBob SquarePants.” The company succeeded because “they still were able to show that people are going to think this restaurant is sponsored by Viacom and has something to do with SpongeBob or is officially licensed by the owners of the SpongeBob copyrights and trademarks,” Roberts says.
Something similar would likely happen with anything related to a famous character like James Bond.
“The fact that we have Bubba Gump Shrimp, the fact that we have goods and services that license well-known trademarks that are related to entertainment franchises, trains consumers to expect there’s a relationship there,” Roberts says.
So, even if Kleindeinst succeed in canceling these trademarks, he could struggle to use them without stepping over the line to infringement.
“The James Bond entities have been somewhat litigious in the past, so they’re not going to take somebody else’s use lying down,” Roberts says.
As for how canceling those trademarks would impact the Bond franchise at large, you don’t need to worry about the next James Bond being 008.
“None of these things would have any effect on film or television or ability to license the character,” Roberts says. “Most of those are copyright related, and they wouldn’t have any effect on all the uses that they’re currently making.”
James Bond in battle to keep hold of 007 super spy’s name
This article is more than 4 months old
Exclusive: Dubai-based property developer is challenging trademark registrations, including the saying ‘Bond, James Bond’
Mark SweneyFri 14 Feb 2025 01.00 ESTShare
The owners of the multibillion-pound James Bond franchise are embroiled in a fight to keep control of the super spy’s name, after a Dubai-based property developer filed claims in the UK and Europe that they are not using the trademark across a range of goods and services.
The Austrian businessman Josef Kleindienst, who is building a $5bn luxury resort complex called the Heart of Europe on six human-made islands just off the coast of Dubai, has filed a slew of what are known officially as “cancellation actions based on non-use” targeting the James Bond name.
Under UK and EU law, if a name is trademarked against certain goods and services but the owner does not commercially exploit it in these areas for a period of at least five years then a challenge to revoke ownership of the name can be made.
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“He is challenging a number of UK and European Union trademark registrations for James Bond,” said Mark Caddle, a partner and patent attorney at European intellectual property firm Withers & Rogers. “The basis of the European Union filings is that James Bond has not been used for the goods and services it protects, and that is likely to be the same basis of the filings in the UK.”
The trademark protection of multiple versions of the super spy’s name are subject to the challenge, including: James Bond Special Agent 007, James Bond 007, James Bond, James Bond: World of Espionage and the famous “Bond, James Bond” saying.
The challenge is against the failure to use the James Bond name across a broad range of “classes” of goods and services. These include “models of vehicles”, “computer programmes and electronic comic books”, “electronic publishing” and design, encompassing uses such as restaurants, cocktail lounge services and accommodation.
The claims were made by Kleindienst, founder of the Kleindienst Group which claims to be the largest European property developer in the United Arab Emirates.
A spokesperson for Kleindienst confirmed that the businessman has plans to utilise the Bond name if he wins his challenge, and that an “announcement is coming soon”.
The EU cancellation actions were filed on 27 January. While no date is provided for the timing of the filing of the UK actions, they are also likely to have been made recently as the cases are listed as “awaiting defence”.
The James Bond trademarks are officially registered to US-based company Danjaq, which controls the rights to worldwide traditional James Bond merchandising in conjunction with Eon.
Eon, the UK-based production company responsible for turning Ian Fleming’s James Bond into one of the most successful film franchises in history, is run by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, who are fiercely protective of the intellectual property rights associated with 007.
Danjaq also co-owns the copyright to the existing James Bond films, along with MGM Studios, which was acquired by Amazon for $8.5bn in 2021 – the same year the last outing of the franchise, No Time to Die, hit cinemas.
“Following the date of the filing of the cancellations Danjaq has two months to submit their defence,” says Caddle. “If Danjaq want to keep these alive they will need to engage in a trademark office action to show that they have used James Bond in the areas being challenged in the last five years.”
James Bond is also likely to be trademarked in the United Arab Emirates, where Kleindienst operates his property business and where the filings list his residence as a hotel, but the trademark office there is not readily publicly accessible to be able to ascertain whether similar cancellation claims have been made.skip past newsletter promotion
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“[Kleindienst] appears to be a property developer based in Dubai so it is hard to know what he is up to with Bond in the UK and Europe,” said Caddle. “He must have some motive.
“He might be trying to clear the path for his own trademark application for Bond, that is the typical route, but he hasn’t lodged one as yet. In any case, Danjaq would certainly counter-challenge. James Bond is still well used and loved. I don’t think that route would be straightforward for him [even if he were to win].”
Eon and Danjaq were contacted for comment.
Meanwhile, the ongoing saga of who will replace Daniel Craig as the next James Bond and when the next film will be announced rumbles on. More than three years on from his final appearance as 007, fans are no closer to knowing who his replacement will be.
Articles have suggested that Broccoli, who along with Wilson maintains strict control over the film franchise and who plays Bond, did not hit it off with Amazon executives after the deal to buy MGM.
In an interview with the Guardian last year, Jennifer Salke, the global head of Amazon MGM Studios, played down reports she got on the wrong side of Broccoli for raising the idea of a Bond TV series.
“We have a good and close relationship with Eon and Barbara and Michael,” said Salke. “We are not looking to disrupt the way those wonderful films are made. For us, we are taking their lead. The global audience will be patient. We don’t want too much time between films, but we are not concerned at this point.”
Josef Kleindienst (born 2 September 1963) is an Austrian property developer, former police officer, and whistleblower.[1][2] He is the chairman of the Kleindienst Group.[3] As of 2016, it was the largest European real estate and property developer in Dubai.[4] In 2020, he was ranked No. 78 in the Construction Week Power 100.[3] During his previous career as a police officer, he wrote and published I Confess, an exposé of a major bribery scandal involving the Freedom Party of Austria.[5] He was also the author of Never Pay a Fine Again (Nie mehr Strafe zahlen) and its self-published sequel in 2002.[6]
Early life and education
Kleindienst was born in 1963 in Mistelbach into a farming family.[2] He had a brother who worked for the police.[2] In 1981, he entered the police academy and completed training the following year.[1][2][7]
Police career
For nearly 20 years, Kleindienst worked as a policeman in Vienna.[8][2] In 1990, he joined the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and became the leader of the police trade union affiliated with the party.[5]
Whistleblowing
In October 2000, Kleindienst triggered a major political scandal when he published his book I Confess (Ich gestehe), which exposed large-scale bribery of police officers who were paid $4,000 or more per month to illegally extract intelligence on real and perceived opponents from police computers for party leader Jörg Haider and his associates.[5][9]
By November 2000, eleven police officers were suspended in what became known as the “spy affair” or “informer affair” (Spitzel-Affäre) based on Kleindienst’s allegations, which were largely substantiated by the Austrian media.[10][11][8] The international media referred to the affair as “Austria’s Watergate“.[12][13] Kleindienst and several Austrian publications later became the target of lawsuits alleging defamation, but were acquitted in 2004.[11][14][15]
Career as property developer
In 2002, Kleindienst published Der Polizist als Millionär, a book in which he claimed to have become a millionaire in Austrian schillings by investing in the Wiener Börse.[16] In 2003, he began investing in the Dubai property market, where he made his fortune.[7][8] He had a franchise license from the German luxury real estate brokerage Engel & Völkers.[17] In 2006, he became self-employed and started Kleindienst & Partners.[17]
Since then, the Kleindienst Group has been developing a $5 billion resort complex called “The Heart of Europe” on six islands in The World, a group of artificial islands off the coast of Dubai.[18][19] Kleindienst purchased his first island, Austria, in 2007.[20] The other five islands he owns are called Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Monaco, and St. Petersburg.[20] Following the 2008 financial crisis, FT.com called him “a rare breed of investor in Dubai” for trying to entice buyers back by continuing to develop property there.[7][21]
The complex includes the Floating Seahorse Villas, which Kleindienst conceived as “130 luxury houseboatlike structures” connecting to St. Petersburg island.[4] The villas feature floor-to-ceiling windows underwater, providing a view of fish swimming by the master bedroom and bathroom, as well as a glass-bottomed jacuzzi on the rooftop.[4][22] In July 2024, the Financial Times reported that the Heart of Europe islands were “still spiked with cranes despite construction starting a decade ago”.[23]
In early 2025, Kleindienst began a legal challenge to the use of the James Bond trademark in the UK and EU, on the basis that the owners had not used the trademark for more than five years.[24][18] At the time, experts predicted that the challenge would fail.[1]
The Austrian Countdown
Posted on December 23, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
Stefan Ein’s father was a member of the Nazi Party. When he came home at the end of World War Two, he took his infant son by his head, and hung him over a balcony, threatening to drop him. After hearing this two months ago, I pondered what was going through Mr. Ein’s mind. I conclude he was very disappointed Hitler lost the war, and, the Super Race Dream that his child represented. This boy became a living reminder, a symbol of utter failure. All hope is gone. The child must die with Hitler.
With Trump’s announcement he wants a new Cold War, we the people of the world have once again been taken hostage by nuclear terror, and we are dangling on the edge. Studies have been done on how much damage the nuclear threat is to the human psyche .Two months ago Stefan and I talked for an hour on the phone about the Habsburg painting at the Jordon Schnitzer Museum. He told me Austrian politics are very progressive, and thus the Austrians may no want this painting. In the last several days there is breaking news that Trump’s national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, met with the leader of the Right-wing group that is giving new life to Nazi ideas.
As I type, the United Nations is about to vote on keeping Israel from building new settlements that were first built by Turnverein Jews, Fort-Eighters who fought the Habsburg army, and lost. The Turners fled to America and Palestine. There would be no Israel without the terror and mass murder Stefan’s father launched on the world. There would be no Republican Party – and President Trump – without the Turners. Are the Habsburgs at the epicenter of the Doomsday Countdown?
Jon Presco
“The Austrian embassy declined to comment.”
On Wednesday, November 9, 2016 11:27 AM, Alex Notman <alex@eugeneweekly.com> wrote:
Hi John,
Thanks for reaching out. I’m going to have to reschedule this for next week. Can we meet Thursday or Friday of next week during working hours?
Thanks,
Alex
Nov 3 at 3:30 PM
your information was forwarded to the Austrian Consulate General. Please give us more details why you to your mind the mentioned canvas was smuggled out of Austria and who did that.
Josef Schwob
Since Dr. Robert Granitsch was married to a “half-Jew” after Nazi legislation, his three children, Susanne, born 1899, Dora, born 1904 and Lorle, born 1912, were persecuted in Austria after the Nazis’ Where Dr. Susan (!) Konirsch, née Granitsch, and Lorle Kornfeld, née Granitsch, had to flee to the USA,”
The alleged meeting between Flynn and Heinz-Christian Strache, which was first reported by The New York Times, took place several weeks ago, according to Strache. In his posting about it, Strache also announced signing a “cooperation pact” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Trump spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment, but an anonymous transition team official told CNN the meeting didn’t happen. The Austrian embassy declined to comment.
An unusually high number of junior-level civil servants in the U.S. National Security Council are looking for other jobs over concerns about President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, according to current and former officials who spoke with The Guardian. Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency until 2014, has emerged as one the most controversial picks Trump has made for his incoming cabinet on account of the retired lieutenant general’s affinity for conspiracy theories and Islamophobia, as well as his partisan posturing and possible connections to the Russian and Turkish governments. Last week, it was also revealed that Flynn had inappropriately shared classified information with foreign military officers while serving in Afghanistan, though an Army investigation later determined national security was not damaged as a result.
Whatever their reasoning, it seems that many of the 400 or so foreign-policy experts who work on the NSC (but aren’t political appointees) aren’t sure it’s a good idea to stick around. Per an official who spoke with The Guardian, “Career people are looking to get out and go back to their agencies and pressure is being put on them to get them to stay. There is concern there will be a half-empty NSC by the time the new administration arrives, which no one wants.” In addition, many of these positions would be difficult to fill, a process that could take months, potentially leading to a talent shortage within a crucial part of the country’s national-security apparatus.
The head of Austria’s anti-immigrant Freedom Party, which was founded after World War II by former Nazis, claimed in a Facebook post this week that he met with Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s pick to serve as his national security adviser.
The alleged meeting between Flynn and Heinz-Christian Strache, which was first reported by The New York Times, took place severHeinz-Christian Strache,al weeks ago, according to Strache. In his posting about it, Strache also announced signing a “cooperation pact” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Trump spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment, but an anonymous transition team official told CNN the meeting didn’t happen. The Austrian embassy declined to comment.
Although the Times story focused on the Russia pact, the alleged Flynn-Strache meeting would be at least as significant. Austrians’ support for far-right parties has increased significantly over the past 15 years. Strache’s Freedom Party received 35 percent of the vote in the first round of the race for Austria’s ceremonial presidency, before narrowly losing a runoff earlier this month.
“This is not just any opposition party: It is one with Nazi sympathies,” said Daniel Serwer, a former state department official who’s now a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “Nor is Flynn any national security adviser. He is a documented conspiracy propagator. His long-term strategy colleague, Steve Bannon, is an ethnic nationalist and anti-Semite. The president-elect is an anti-Muslim and anti-immigration bigot.”
There’s no doubt that Strache, who worries about “inverse racism, “Austrian youths” being “beaten up in discos” and the “risk of Islamization,” has a lot in common with Flynn, who has also warned of the dangers of Islam and called the religion a “cancer,” and Trump, who called for banning all Muslims from visiting the U.S.
Although they’re proud of their positions on immigration and Islam, Strache and Flynn have denied that they’re anti-Semitic.
The Freedom Party’s first leader was Anton Reinthaller, who supported the Nazi party as early as 1928 and later served as a Nazi government official. Reinthaller was a member of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organization-turned-secret police that executed much of the Holocaust. Although there’s no clear evidence that Reinthaller was directly involved in the shooting, gassing and torture of millions of Jews, Roma, communists, gay people and others, he served in the government that carried it out and did nothing to stop it.
Here’s a photo of him with Hitler during the Reichstag meeting about Germany’s annexation of Austria:
“Readers have a hard time distinguishing between ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis,” warned Swanee Hunt, a former U.S. ambassador to Austria who’s now a lecturer at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. In Austria, “there was always this struggle with how do you deal with people who were Nazis,” she said. “Austria had lots and lots of people who were Nazis and sympathizers. It’s not like they just disappear into thin air.”
When Hunt served in Austria in the 1990s, the Freedom Party “had that strain that’s echoed here more in the alt-right,” she said, referring to white nationalist Richard Spencer’s term for American white nationalism and its associated movements. “It’s building on this anti-foreigner and anti-Muslim sentiment that you see, frankly, all over.”
The Freedom Party has worked hard to woo Jews ― Strache has visited Israel and the party hosted a conference on anti-Semitism last month. The Freedom Party believes it has a “common cause,” with “Israel and the Jewish people,” the Washington Post reported in November: “controlling the spread of Islam.”
But sometimes, the past shines through.
In 2012, Austria’s then-president canceled plans to give Strache an award after the Freedom Party leader was overheard claiming that he and his allies were the “new Jews” and that the fearsome heckling they received on their way into a gala at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace was “like Kristallnacht,” the night in 1938 when Austrian and German civilians, with the aid of Nazi paramilitaries, murdered Jews, destroyed Jewish-owned stores, burned hundreds of synagogues and sent tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps to die.
“Strache mocked the victims of the Holocaust by comparing himself and his fellow extremists to Jews and invoking Kristallnacht to complain about the anti-fascist protests,” Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a Holocaust survivor, said at the time. “This trivialization is outrageous, but not surprising from Strache and his ilk.”
Now Strache carries Reinthaller’s party’s mantle.
Trump used anti-Semitic tropes and received support from anti-Semites during his campaign for president. In July, Flynn retweeted and endorsed an anti-Semitic tweet, but later claimed it was a mistake.
“At risk of appearing to be a conspiracy theorist myself, I think we are seeing an effort to build an international coalition of like-minded anti-Muslim, anti-immigration ethnic nationalists who can be depended upon to undermine the liberal democratic order of the West, in particular its international norms regarding peace and security, its trade and investment rules, and its human rights standards,” Serwer said.
INTERPOL & STOLEN ART
Posted on November 21, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
I have contacted INTERPOL and UNESCO about the Habsburg Pianting at the Schnitzer. I will be sending this blog to Jill Hartz, the Executive Director. I sent an e-mail to Cheyrl Hartup, and got no response. I had several telephone conversation with Alexandra V. Cipolle-Notman of the Eugene Weekly. We exchanged e-mails about our meeting place. She never got back to me, and has not replied to further e-mails from me. She asked me on the phone if I tried contacting the Habsburgs. I told her I had not. I do not trust her. Why should I? All my correspondence is copyrighted, along with the contents of my blog. A real crime may have been committed. This is not the time to play games.
Below is an e-mail I sent Stefan Eins in September of 2013 about this Habsburg painting a famous artist from Austria. Jospeh Swobb said he would forward my information to Austrian Consulate. The possible obstruction of a criminal matter of this magnitude, has bid me to be as transparent as possible. Who knows where this will lead?
John Presco
Presdient: Royal Rosamond Press Co.
John Ambrose <braskewitz@yahoo.com>
To
Today at 11:01 AM
Dear Ms. Hartz – Over ten days ago I contacted Charyl Hartup about the Habsburg painting that is possibly stolen. I was going to meet with Ms. Alexandra V. Cippoli-Notman at a resturant, then we changed that to the Schnitzer because I wanted to introduce her to my dear friend, Virginia Hambley, who is related to Empress Zita. I told her it would be wonderful to take Virginia’s pic in front of ‘The Last Audience’. Alex failed to confirm this meeting and has not responded to my e-mails. This is an insult! I will let members of the House of Bourbon know of it. Virginia’s great grandfather tried to restore the Bourbons, and led the invasion of Algiers to dispose of a Caliphate. Let us not interfere with a international investigation. I have contacted UNESCO and INTERPOL and sent them this message.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
I contacted someone at the Austrian Consulate about the Habsburg painting at the Universty of Oregon museum, that I believe belongs to Austria. Just after the war, In Room 318 of the Imperial Hotel in Vienna where the Property Control Branch of the Allied Forces has set up a Reparation Division. Below is part of the correspondence of Susanne Granitsch-Konirsch. She is the daughter of Helene Granitsch who is standing behind Empress Zita and staring out at the intended audience. Thus large unfinished work ended up in a bank vault in Eugene Oregon where it sat for sixteen years. https://rosamondpress.com/2016/11/05/spring-roses-of-nations/
On Wednesday, November 9, 2016 11:27 AM, Alex Notman <alex@eugeneweekly.com> wrote:
Hi John,
Thanks for reaching out. I’m going to have to reschedule this for next week. Can we meet Thursday or Friday of next week during working hours?
Thanks,
Alex
Rosamond Press 
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