Born to Be Sued: The Mongols Saga

Who knew the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang had intellectual, er, property.

Well, they do. But they might not have it for long.

In perhaps one of the weirdest intersections of corporate branding and criminal law to ever hit the federal docket, the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles today laid out a wide-ranging federal racketeering indictment against the Mongols, also known as the "Mongols™," seeking among other punishments, to strip the biker gang of its very name.

"In addition to pursuing the criminal charges set forth in the indictment, for the first time ever, we are seeking to forfeit the intellectual property of a gang," United States Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said. Were the court to grant the request, he added, then any law enforcement officer seeing a Mongol wearing the gang's signature patch "will be authorized to stop that gang member and literally take the jacket right off his back."

The gang trademarked its name in 2005, federal records show, with the trademark encompassing all promotion of "interests of persons interested in the recreation of riding motorcycles." On the gang's patch, the name surrounds a character vaguely resembling Genghis Khan.

According to the indictment, Mongols members -- known by nicknames such as "Doc," "Big Joe," "Reaper," "Nasty," and "Spider" -- have instead run methamphetamines, laundered money, trafficked in weapons, and committed a range of violent acts from robbery to murder.

Among the numerous examples cited in the indictment:

• Mongols caused a riot at an ultimate fighting championship in Riverside County, California, where they attacked victims with "with knives, struck victims with chairs, and kicked them with steel-toed boots."
• Mongols attacked rival gang members and an off-duty fireman as they "attempted to collect donations at a 'Toys for Tots' event in Norco, California."
• Mongols tortured a man in Los Angeles for three hours "by breaking the man's knuckles with a pair of pliers, breaking his knee by hitting it with a metal pipe, and then kicking the victim as he attempted to escape."

It's unclear whether the government's attack on the Mongol's trademark would work, or if it should.

"It's cute and clever, but it's also a bit troubling," says Yoav M. Griver, a trademark, copyright and intellectual property lawyer with Zeichner Ellman & Krause in New York, calling the move "an over-reach" of forfeiture law.

"What if the government had decided that, because of the Watergate scandal, nobody could use the word Republican again?" he added, noting that he's also not convinced taking the Mongols name would stop the gang in their tracks. "If they can't use the word Mongols, then they could just call themselves something else, like the Genghis Khans."

The feds might have also underestimated the Mongols legal acumen. While the Mongols have obviously been busy burnishing the reputation of their mark, a review of trademark documents seems to indicate that they no longer own it.

That's because, according to the federal trademark registry, the non-profit Mongol Nation assigned the trademark to a Pasadena, California, company called Shotgun Productions L.L.C. earlier this year.

If that's the case, and Shotgun Productions can't be tied to any of the alleged criminal enterprise, it could be hard for the feds to take the mark away.

by Kit R. Roane

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