Tried to make this post earlier, but for some reason it ended up saying a moderator had to review it. Anyway ....
I spent the required $1.00 plus 2.7% surcharge fee (boy, governments are creative) to search the records of registered business entities in Texas at the Secretary of State's website. I searched for Learfan Co. and got 19 results, none of which were actually Learfan Co. The results inluded one and two word names starting with bot LA and LE, and entities including Co., Corp., LLC, LLP, Corporation and so on. The search casts a pretty wide net, so I'm confident in saying that there is not a legally organized and registered business entity in Texas by the name Learfan Co. The only other possibility is that Gustavo is a sole proprietor operating under an assumed name which, so long as registered at the Dallas County Courthouse, would be legal. But he's not a corporation, that's for sure.
He has two possible claims, and it would help, Bill, if you simply quoted his email that you ultimately referred to in which he claimed the right to the aircraft name. Anyway, one possibility is a trademark claim, which is a claim that says he owns the name Lear Fan and has used it as a trademark and that your use of it infringes on his rights. The second kind of claim would be a copyright violation in which he says he owns the copyright to the visual image of the aircraft itself. That copyright claim would only be valid if he had purchased the original copyright from Lear Avia or a successor owner. The trademark claim would only be valid if he were selling Lear Fan aircraft or flight simulation depictions of a Lear Fan. Trademarks do not provide for exclusive use of the term, but only for exclusive use in connection with a specific product or service. An infringing use is one which would cause consumers of the trademarked good or service to have confusion over the source of that good or service. To use the example posted above, the ceiling fan, there would be no such confusion, hence no infringing use. That's because a consumer of ceiling fans wouldn't care who used the name in connection with a flight sim add-on, but wold get confused if two people tried to use the same name for different ceiling fans.
His address is one I drive past frequently. It is adjacent to a wide high tension power corridor paralleling a main thoroughfare, and it is not a place where a corporate executive would reside.
I look forward to seeing what his reply is.
:d
Just saying....
