I shipped off my response to the suits today, registered mail. They asked me for four things of which I gave them three.

1) Immediate discontinuance of use of the trademark. Done! (Actually, I never used their trademark.)

2) Turning over all material which contain the trademark. There never was any. I offered merchandise from Cafe Press, but nobody ever bought anything. Also, their trademark is the later “Astounding Science Fiction” logo that was used in the 1940’s. I copied an “Amazing Stories” logo changing the Amazing to Astounding.

3) An accounting of all sales… Sales = zero.

Item 4 is “an assignment of the domain name”. This they won’t get without a fight. There have been at least 4 and possible many more uses of the phrase “Astounding Stories” on science fiction products since 1930. To make absolutely sure, I moved all of the SF off of the url and onto another site.

They threaten me with 1) and award of damages for lost sales and profits. and 2) an award of attornys’ fees.

Penny publications has no products that have the Astounding Stories trademark on them. In trademarks, it’s “use it or loose it”. I would be interested in accounting from Penny of any sales of trademarked products. I am quite certain that any sales are miniscule. The only trademarked product isn’t even their product. 21st Century Archives (the original owners of the trademark) released a set of collecting cards based on early covers of Astounding stories. Street and Smith failed to renew the copyright on these early editions and in 1994 they were public domain. (Further proof that the Penny’s trademark is invalid). The millenium copyright act might return the copyright to penny, but I don’t think that ownership of the early issues can be traced through the many ownership changes of the Astounding magazines and then Analog. I doubt that any documents exist which grant penny ownership of “Astounding Stories”, especially since the actual name of the magazine was “Astounding Stories of Super Science”.

Why is Penny worried about my website? Could it be that they have a project planned which uses the title “Astounding Stories”? Could it be that they want the domain name for some reason?

I play poker with a successful TV producer. He is quite interested in my idea of using the title “Astounding Stories” as a basis for a TV show/series. I have written a few treatments based on stories that I have written and some summaries of stories that appeared in the original Astounding Stories. The idea seems to have legs, because he has found some backers who may be interested. Ownership of the domain is important to the success of this project.

I would suggest that Penny can’t beat me, so they had better join me.