Hello,

Last week, this email was sent to every attorney, senator, representative,
reporter, writer and legal office that we could find in Florida and New York. 
We are now forwarding a copy to you (distinguished law school professors
and legal reporting staff) with the hopes that you might be able to help.
Please forgive the instrusion. We know you are busy and understand that
this may not be your field of expertise however....


Could someone please help us or give us some direction??? Advice? Ideas?
Perhaps you could forward this email to someone you know that might help?
Perhaps you could publish this story?


Anything, please! We would not bother you if we were not about to give up
all hope.


I graduated from Florida State University this Spring with a degree in
Information Studies. My husband is currently attending and will graduate
next Spring. I will be attending the Instructional Systems masters program
this fall.


We are being sued by a big company called Robert Half International (
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/r/rhi.html ) and the
Darby & Darby law firm in New York City ( http://www.darbylaw.com ) for
trademark infringement of their mark "OFFICETEAM".

My husband and I live in Florida with our three year old daughter. My
husband is a disabled veteran. 

We have a website that *was* called "Virtual Office Team" located at
virtualassistantjobs.com (we do not earn any money from this site - it is a
free service.)  We are not incorporated, do not have a registered business
license for this nor do we even have a DBA for "Virtual Office Team". 

We were served papers by a big New York law firm (Darby & Darby)
representing Robert Half International that they were suing us in New York
City for copyright infringement for their trademark "OFFICETEAM".  The day
we found out we were being sued we changed the website to "Virtual Office
Temps". We never had any letterhead, business cards, telephone numbers,
ads, or any other such item for this website so there was nothing else to
change.

We were never given cease and desist letters and were never contacted via
mail, telephone or email about this prior to being sued. We were just sued
without any warning. We had no idea that you couldn't use the words "Office
Team" with the word "Virtual" to describe something, especially since they
are very general words. We did not know that "OFFICETEAM" was the same
thing or that it belonged to "Robert Half International". 

The law firm Darby & Darby has sued companies like Nabisco and Calvin
Klein. Why are coming after us?  We live off of my husbands veterans
benefits and the little that he gets each month for the G.I. Bill while
attending Florida State University. Our home is mortgaged and we have no
savings besides a few small IRA's. The current balance of our bank account
is less than $100. The case is to be heard by US District Judge Gerald
Lynch, an honorable man who, as you probably know, has worked with cases
involving people like Bill Clinton and WorldCom executives. Why would he
want to waste his time with something like this or people like us? 

As I said, the day we heard about the lawsuit, we quickly changed the name
from Virtual Office Team to Virtual Office Temps but Darby and Darby still
wants $10,000 from us for their "attorney fees"! We do not have any money,
especially not $10,000. They also want us to sign all kinds of orders that
we do not understand making us agree to things like our judisdiction being
in New York even though we live and work in Florida and giving up our right
to appeal. (Robert Half International is based in Menlo Park, California!)
http://ipcenter.bna.com/pic2/ip.nsf/id/BNAP-5JAJJC?OpenDocument

We asked for an extension until June 16th so that we could have time to
find someone who might help us but Darby & Darby denied our request. They
will not even give us time to find legal representation! Can this be right?

We live in Florida and don't know what to do or how to fight this in New
York. (We've never even been to New York City before!). My husband cannot
travel to New York because of a medical condition.

Many lawyers we've contacted told us that Darby and Darby and Robert Half
International are too big to deal with. One attorney told us that they
would squash us and laugh about it. Florida attorney's told us they can't
help because the thing is filed in NY. New York attorneys have told us to
get a lawyer in Florida. 

One firm wanted a $7,000 retainer! We told them we didn't have that kind of
money and they said they couldn't help. But they did tell us not to sign
anything from Darby & Darby and that there is a complete absence of bad
faith, and no proof of actual consumer confusion. 

What should we do???

Please know that we are not the only ones that are going through this!

There is another girl, Nancy Brown from Texas (nancy@virtualgalfriday.com),
who is also being sued by Darby & Darby and Robert Half International. She
owns VirtualGalFriday.com and her story is exactly the same. Darby & Darby
is trying to force her to give up her domain name and sign her life away to
them. Like us, she doesn't have the money to fight them. She is a mom who
lives in a small town in Texas. Because she could not find help
before the short deadline that Darby & Darby gave her, she is now in
"default". 

Isn't there anyone who can help us?

Just like Nancy, We are honest people just trying to make a small living.
We would never try to infringe on someone's business. This was just an
honest mistake regarding the words "Office Team". Why are they trying to
hurt us like this? We never associated the term "Office Team" with Robert
Half International and didn't even think for once that using these two very
generic words would violate someones trademark. If they had just sent us a
letter informing us of the problem we would have taken care of everything
quickly. Instead they are trying to ruin our lives.

It has happened to others too! See:
http://www.toysrgus.com/toysrusbs.html 
http://www.toysrgus.com/toysrusbs.html
http://interactive.wsj.com/public/current/articles/SB917915239794964000.htm


WHAT DO WE DO???


According to Darby & Darby, we only have until June 5th. We plan to email
all the major newspapers and newsstations with the hopes of getting someone
to help us because this is destroying our lives and family. We've tried to
talk to Darby & Darby but to no avail. 


Please, can anyone help? 
We would forever be in your debt.



Thank you and God bless,

Tryna and Dan Fitzpatrick 
321.733.1700 

**(and Nancy Brown, nancy@virtualgalfriday.com)



If it helps, here is a timeline of the issue:
---------------------------------------------

2/25/02: 
We did a search for "Virtual Office Team" to make sure that the name was
not being used. We did not find anything so we registered
virtualassistantjobs.com and put up our website. (We also registered
virtualofficeteam.com but never used the domain and never put a site on
this domain.) We had never heard of Robert Halfs "OFFICETEAM"

Our "Virtual Office Team" website was a free service that would match
virtual assistants with people or companies looking for short term help. We
got the idea from Elance.com (not Robert Half International!)

2/25/03
We let the domain virtualofficeteam.com domain name expire (did not renew
it) because we were thinking of changing the name to something that would
incorporate the idea of "temporary work at home projects" in the title.
(This is what we do, we are not an "administrative staffing firm" as Robert
Half International claims. We've never made any job placements or earned
money with our website

5/2/3
We receiced the summons / served law suit papers at our home as we were on
our way out of town for a trip to the Florida State University graduation
ceremonies. We delayed our trip so that I could change the words on the
website. THAT DAY... WE REMOVED ALL REFERENCES TO "OFFICE TEAM" ON OUR
WEBSITE. We changed the name to Virtual Office Temps and registered
virtualofficetemps.com

The lawsuit was filed against my husband, Daniel Fitzpatrick, even though
he had no knowledge of the virtualassistantjobs.com website, never
participated in the site and did not own the site. (I own the domain
"virtualassistantjobs.com"). He talked to Darby & Darby on the phone and
told them that that website was not his, but they didn't care.

I signed the summons even though it was for Daniel Fitzpatrick. The
deadline to answer was May 22, 2003.


5/20/03
My husband called Darby & Darby. Told them we couldn't afford to get a
lawyer and couldn't find anyone to help us. He told them he was a disable
veteran, that we had changed the site and that we did not, in bad faith,
use the words "office team" on our website. Darby & Darby told us they
still wanted $10,000 in legal fees and for us to sign a "Final Judgment and
Permanent Injunction on Consent". This document forced us to agree to
jurisdiction in New York, to waive our right to appeal, etc. We said we
would not sign it. Darby & Darby then sent us a "Stipulation and Order to
Extend Time to Answer, Move or Otherwise Respond"

5/22/03
We found an attorney who was willing to read over the paperwork. We signed
the "Stipulation and Order to Extend" but were advised NOT to sign the
"Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction"

The time to answer was extended until June 5 2003.

5/23/03
We found out about another lawsuit filed against Nancy Brown, owner of
VirtualGalFriday.com and TheVirtualOfficeTeam.com. We spoke to Nancy on the
phone. Her case was almost exactly like ours - except her deadline had
already passed. She was now in "default". She had no money for an attorney
and couldn't find anyone who was willing to help her. Her address is
nancy@virtualgalfriday.com

We started sending emails to reporters, writers, instructors, professors,
veterans organizations, lawyers, state representatives and others with the
hopes of finding assistance. To date, we've received letters of support,
but no offers of assistance that did not involve large retainers. 


5/27/03
We are sending more emails with the hopes of finding help or even news
coverage of this. We would be happy to forward any and all documents of our
case to you at your request.

If you need additional information, please contact us:

Dan and Tryna Fitzpatrick
321.733.1700
info@virtualassistantjobs.com
*Mobile available upon request






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