Nobody is saying we should renew trademarks for everything on the planet. The only things being discussed are the existing TM rights transferred to us from Nokia, and if/how we should handle renewing them.

To be 100% clear, I'm not asking anyone to take out loans to do this. If you're choosing between paying your rent or chipping in for TM renewal, you need to stop and get your life in order. Nobody is going to die or go homeless if this doesn't get renewed. I clearly said, if we can get the renewals funded in time, it seems like a reasonable thing to do to help protect the community. If we can't, it's simply a risk that we'll have to take.

Your claim that people are "fear mongering" to take money from "broke" people here and "blow it on lawyers" is frankly insulting. As if we have nothing better to do with our time then beg for money so we can just "throw it away". How would than benefit anyone involved? What would the motivation be for anyone to do that?

I also love how you state you're not a lawyer, but then insist there's "no way we could lose a case", where one brought against us down the road.

Since you seem to have missed the point: I'm not talking about "losing" a case. I'm talking about the price tag involved in DEFENDING our rights to keep the domain and/or our existing look/branding IF we are sued later. Having a current registration turns that defense from being a case where we'd have to hire a lawyer, to a case most lawyers would take on for "free".

Have you ever been in a court case involving a large company? I have, and I can tell you they're not cheep. Even after "winning" in court, the appeals and collection process could drag on for years. I've seen profitable companies, with much deeper pockets than this community, go bankrupt from the cost of legal representation, even after "winning" their case in court.

There are several examples of people winning cases, and going bankrupt from legal expenses. Even small companies, dealing with TM. And even if you 'win", you may not always get the award granted by the court to pay your fees. And least one thinks this is just a US issue, even European countries have this issue.