WASHINGTON
Federal prosecutors have dropped a controversial bid to seize the trademark owned by a motorcycle club that casts itself as the “Devils Diciples.”
But while the development this week cheers the Midwestern group and the California-based lawyer who represents them, it does not entirely slam the brakes on other trademark challenges involving motorcyclists’ fierce and distinctive logos.
Still in the government’s cross hairs, notably, is the trademarked logo for the Mongol Nation, a Southern California-based motorcycle club whose intellectual property has been sought byfederal prosecutors since 2008. A federal appellate court is now considering the Mongol Nation case.hese trademark cases are important to the clubs, whose free association has been threatened by the attempts by (prosecutors) to enjoin use of their membership (marks) by non-indicted persons,” Devils Diciples attorney Fritz Clapp, a former longtime Sacramento resident, said Tuesday.
Members of the Mongols and the Devils Diciples call their organizations clubs, while law enforcement officials refer to them as gangs or criminal enterprises.
Prosecutors began trying to seize the Devils Diciples’ trademark as a byproduct of a criminal case that culminated in the February convictions of six Devils Diciples leaders on drugs, firearms and other charges.
The prosecutors’ decision now to leave the Devils Diciples’ trademark alone was noted through filings made Monday in federal court in Detroit. The prosecutors explained in one filing that they had “learned the identity of the trademark’s owner,” who has not been charged with crimes.
“Generally, the government can oforfeiture statute, in which a defendant in a criminal case has an ownership interest,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Linda Aouate explained Tuesday.
Most law enforcement asset-forfeiture efforts target conventional property. As part of their original Devils Diciples case, prosecutors in October 2014 itemized property they wanted to seize, from Glock handguns and Mossberg shotguns to slot machines and “two Devils Diciples bandanas.”
At the end of the 32-page property listing, prosecutors included the club’s trademark.
That trademark, including the deliberately rebellious spelling, consists of an upper arc framing the words “Devils Diciples,” a design with two crossed pitchforks over a spoked wheel, and the letters “M.C.”
If prosecutors had prevailed in their trademark-forfeiture effort, the government could have eventually owned the mark and protected its property interests, such as by demanding that club members surrender their treasured designs.
“I was pleased the (prosecutors) easily recognized that the facts and law favored my client, so that the matter need not be submitted to the court for decision,” Clapp said.
A 70-year-old graduate of the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law, Clapp has also represented the Hells Angels in protecting that motorcycle club’s intellectual property. Sometimes this has entailed taking th
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