Thank you everyone! This was just posted on myspace bulliten by Dawn-
I am asking a personal favor to please read this e-mail and forward it your friends and families in hopes to help us help CDH families as something very important has occurred that we should all be aware of.
An organization has filed a trademark application to own the phrase "Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness". This same organization has threatened CHERUBS with countless lawsuits and false charges the past year claiming that they owned the trademark that wasn't filed until April, 2008.
But now it is officially filed and the threats are dangerous to everyone trying to raise awareness of CDH.This means that no one, no CDH family, no medical center, no other organization including CHERUBS would be able to use this phrase to raise awareness or help CDH babies while this organization would be sole owner to use awareness of this birth defect as a marketing tool. No one should own awareness of a birth defect that hurts 1600 babies a year in the U.S. and kills 800 of them. I cannot begin to express how detrimental this would be to the entire CDH community and our efforts to raise awareness, support and research for this devastating birth defect.
We are petitioning this with the U.S. Patent & Copyright office and need your help.
Go to this link and sign please:
http://www. ipetitions. com/petition/cdhawareness/
The trademark application can be found at
http://tarr. uspto. gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77436855
We would like to raise 10,000 signatures on this petition to present to the U.S. Patent office with our opposition paperwork, along with the stack of evidence on how this is just wrong legally and morally. Please, help us to help CDH families and all people who deal with diseases and birth defects who may be affected by the selling of awareness.
