Preliminary Matters

PRELIMINARY MATTERS - by Mia Nelson

1) Culliford claims that his 2000 agreement with the AKGA prohibits AKGA from registering Caprinex’s goats, since they are still in NZ. Have a look at that agreement, click here. Start reading at the bottom of page 6, under the “Restraint of Trade” section. Important quotes:

“The Vendor (Culliford) agrees that he, his heirs and successors and assigns are restrained from engaging in the registration, identification or genetic fingerprinting of Kiko goats within the geographic confines of the American continent for a period of ten years from the date of this agreement.” (That would mean, until 2010)

“The Vendor (Culliford) agrees that he, his heirs and successors and assigns are restricted to the original registration of Kiko and Genemaster goats in New Zealand and Australia only.”

There is absolutely nothing in this agreement that restricts anybody but Culliford himself in the registering of goats. The “Restraint of Trade” section in the 2000 agreement was designed to protect AKGA from Culliford, not the other way around. By challenging these registrations, Culliford IS certainly "engaging in the registration, identification or genetic fingerprinting of Kiko goats" - and that is something he promised NOT to do until 2010.

2) Culliford claims he owns the rights to the name “Goatex” because of the agreement he made with Caprinex to buy Goatex’s assets in 1994. Well, I have a copy of that agreement sitting here, and so does the AKGA’s lawyer. My guess is Culliford’s lost his. The agreement shows that Culliford bought the TANGIBLE assets ONLY - those being the goats. Culliford was NOT sold any intangible assets, while include things like names, ideas, data, etc. There is no mention of assigning the name Goatex to the purchasers or “their heirs and assigns” as he claims. The AKGA attorney has verified all this from the sale document - click here to see proof.

3) Culliford claims he has a “copyright” to the name “Goatex”. If Culliford knew anything about copyrights, he’d know that trade names and logos are not copyrighted, they are trademarked. Read this from the US Trademark office, and you will see that copyrights are only for creative works, information, books, etc. Just for kicks, I searched the US trademark database, and big surprise, Goatex is not registered there. Go ahead and search it yourself here if you like.

4) Culliford claims he registered Goatex as an assumed business name (DBA) in Kerr County, Texas. But DBA’s are not recorded by counties. They are recorded by the Texas Secretary of State. I attach for you here the printout from Texas. You will note they have no record of any DBA containing the word “Goatex”, and no record of any type of business filing by anyone named “Culliford”. You can search for yourself here, but it costs $1 per search. Finally, click here for the website for Kerr County, in case you’d like to check with them.

5) In 2000, Culliford claimed to have a NZ company called “Goatex Group LLC”. This is a little complicated, but please bear with me. On page 1 of the 2000 sale agreement with AKGA, Culliford claims to be doing business in NZ as "Goatex Group LLC". That term means "limited liability company", and guess what, those only exist in the United States. Click here for more information.

Well, what about NZ? Could Culliford just have been confused? Maybe he meant to say “Goatex Group Limited”, which is the name of the NZ company he bought from Caprinex in 1994? Guess what: he abandoned that company by not keeping up the corporate registration with NZ, and it was struck off (dissolved) in 1996. Click here for the proof.

Could Culliford have formed a real “Goatex Group LLC” in the United States? Well, in order for that to happen, articles of incorporation would have to be recorded by the Secretary of State of one of the states. I didn’t search all 50 states, but I did search every state I know of that Culliford did business in, and found nothing.

And what about his claim, also on page 1 of the 2000 AKGA sale agreement, to be DBA in the USA as the “Kiko Goat Registry”? Ditto, that would have to be registered by a Secretary of State in one of the states. Again, I searched and found nothing.

6) Culliford claims he has some fashion of right to the name “Goatex” because he traded under that name here in the US years ago. Just because somebody uses a name, that doesn’t give them the exclusive right to use it. Others may do so as well, so long as it isn't trademarked. And even when a name IS officially trademarked (which Goatex is NOT), non-use for just three years renders it abandoned. See the definitions section of the Lanham Act, which reads in part: “Nonuse for three consecutive years shall be prima facie evidence of abandonment. "Use" of a mark means the bona fide use of that mark made in the ordinary course of trade, and not made merely to reserve a right in a mark.” According to the AKGA website, Culliford is not even a member of the AKGA, let alone actively breeding Kikos and using the Goatex name.

7) Culliford claimed that he needed to change the tags on the Kikos he bought, since there were duplicate numbers. Yet the sale list of goats he bought shows there were no tag number duplications.

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