when finished, move on - the lawsuit begins

DECLARATION OF JOHN CPAATTY (sworn statement filed with the court)

I, John Cpaatty, hereby declare:

1. I am an attorney and I am the president of Small, a Washington professional corporation. I represent Small in this action, have personal knowledge of the facts stated in this declaration and am competent to testify as to their truth.

2. In September, 2004, I filed an application for the registration of the trademark TaxHQ, which I had used in its then form at least as early as March, 2003, as a service mark for tax and legal services in the nature of determining choice of entity questions, including tax document preparation and the formation of corporate entities

3. At the time of the filing of the application, I was unaware of the existence of Big and I was unaware of the existence of the newsletter named TaxHQ.

4. I had previously commissioned a computer professional to reserve the domain name TaxHQ.com, and was told by the professional that the name was available and that it had been reserved on August 15, 2004. In late October 2004, I learned that the domain name TaxHQ.com had in fact been recently registered to someone else, and made inquiries to determine who the registrant was. I learned that the registration was for the benefit of the defendant in this case, and that the person I should speak to with respect to the matter was Mr. Big Official.

5. I called Big Official in late October, 2004, to ascertain what was going on and was advised by him that the defendants had been using the name TaxHQ for their newsletter for some period of time. I told Mr. Official that I had been using TaxHQ as a service mark with respect to my tax and legal services in the nature of determining choice of entity questions, including tax document preparation and the formation of corporate entities.

6. Mr. Official said that he would have A. Nother Person send me some copies of the TaxHQ newsletter. Mr. Official advised me that the defendants had just recently opened an office in Seattle, and I advised Mr. Official that I was using the mark in newpaper advertisements in Seattle.

7. Mr. Person sent me the copies in early November, 2004, and I later learned that the defendants filed an application for the registration of the trademark TaxHQ with respect to their newsletter in late November, 2004 and an application for the registration of Big TaxHQ as a service mark in March, 2005.