Help Save Lesley and BD FB page!

Well, it turns out yesterday's suppositions were correct.  Here is the text of an email received from Lesley Diane Marino after several attempts to get a reply:

To Whom it May Concern:

  This letter is in response to the overwhelming concern in regard to the Blenderized Diet entity.  As many of you know, I developed and began Blenderized Diet in 2001 for my daughter, Nina.  The creations and development of Blenderized Diet includes the term "Blenderized Diet" and all associate recipes.  I started the Blenderized Diet Yahoo support group in 2005 in an effort to assist other families in the same situation as myself.  Over the years, Blenderized Diet has grown, and I have chosen to take it to the next level and form it into a business entity.  As some of you may not know, Beverly Hanset-Burch has attempted to take Blenderized Diet as her own by purchasing URL's under this name and creating a Facebook page as well.  These actions are unacceptable from a business perspective.  The actions that I have taken in response are to protect my business interests and should be viewed as such.

  I respectfully request that any and all comments or concerns regarding Blenderized Diet be kept on topic, and business issues be directly addressed to me via email, and not on Facebook, forums, causes.com, or groups.  I further request when using term 'Blenderized Diet' for business purposes my written permission be obtain.

  Blenderized Diet was established to bring healthy options to individuals who receive nutritional support though a feeding tube.  I am here to continue that goal.

Sincerely,

Lesley Diane Marino
NinaBean@tampabay.rr.com

As you can see, Lesley is claiming ownership of a term in common usage for over a decade, a time frame that goes infinitely further back than the birth of her daughter Nina, for whom Lesley believes she 'invented' the concept of calling food made in a blender for tube feeding a Blenderized Diet.  It would be like me stuffing ground meat in a cylindrical skin casing, selling it as sausages, and many years later trying to assert I own the word sausage.  For those of you unfamiliar with sausages, they have been around for millenia.

Facebook has, as per their policies, taken down our Blenderized Diet page due to her complaint of infringement on her IP rights.  FB policy does not need proof or example, only an allegation.  It cannot be reinstated unless Lesley agrees that it can be.  Which is why I have started the campaign to get everyone on the planet to email Lesley at the email address above, cc Facebook's IP department on ip@fb.com, and try and get this resolved.

Otherwise, it's going to mean legal action, which would likely destroy Lesley financially.  We have lawyer volunteers dedicated to a good cause.  She is out there in the cold, on her own.  But such is dharma, I feel.  I have compassion and empathy, but this is a dangerous precedent.

Every single person behind those 41,600 Google hits you get when searching for 'Blenderized Diet' and now anyone who dares to publish a recipe for food in a blender, according to her email, is liable to have action taken against them by Lesley.

OK, common sense says this may not happen.  Common sense also says we can just start another FB page with a different name, and publicize it widely.  But people search for 'blenderized diet'.  Why?  Because that's what everyone's been calling it since long before Lesley got in the game.  And there's also the danger that lesley will very simply do this again, regardless of what we call it.  She has only to allege, and FB must act and take down the page; thus depriving all the good people seeking and offering support for each other, seeking no profit or personal gain of their ability to help one another.  If it weren't taking place under the aegis of the Facebook terms of use, it would be impossible to do.

Lesley has clearly behaved in a legally criminal manner.  She has injured my good name and reputation with her allegations that I have 'stolen' from her by infringing her intellectual property rights.  There are myriad legal avenues fr redress and it may come to pass that Lesley is dragged through the courts and the media, all to sign a simple agreement that she does not any longer assert a singular right to the term 'Blenderized Diet' or any rights to 'any associated recipes'.

Please help.  Email her and ask her nicely, and cc Facebook in.  Maybe they'll change their rules if we get thousands of people doing it.  They are already across the information, and are currently just sitting on their hands.

Please help, and help Lesley too.

Help Save Lesley and BD FB page!