Find your Center and Then Sue the Yogi. If you're having trouble finding a local yoga place that offers Bikram yoga, it may have to do with the lack of qualified instructors and dozens of cease and desist letters that went to schools that fail to meet the Bikram standards. Bikram yoga, named after its inventor, Bikram Choudry, is a set of 26 yoga poses performed in room heated to 105 degrees. Choudry has sent over a hundred cease and desist letters to yoga centers all over the country claiming that they must stop providing Bikram yoga because they deviate from his system or they don't use instructors trained by Choudry. In response, a non-profit collective, called Open Source Yoga Unity, sued Choudry seeking declaratory relief stating that he has no trademark or copyright protection because his poses have been used in public for centuries. According to the group, "No one can own a style of yoga." Namaste.
Posted by franchiselawblog at February 10, 2004 06:50 PM