I haven't really read this whole thread yet, but here are some fore thoughts anyways....
1. Read my post on Gou's Thread "Are Belts Revokable" to get my full stance on that. The fact is, you can denounce someone as much as you want, but you can't change the past. If they earned a black belt under you, then that cannot be changed, even if you denounce them as a your studen't. My advise is I wouldn't even try this route, because you risk ruining your own credability. You can say this w/o ruining your own credability: "He knows up to his rank, but there is a lot that he doesn't know. I feel bad for his students because they would get better instruction from some of my black belt students at my school who are much more knowledgable then he." But if you say something like this: "That guy doesn't know anything, and should have never gotten his black belt!" when your the one who gave him his rank, then you risk looking like a clown! See what I mean?
2. Good luck with Legal recourse. The fact is that pirating is a commonplace in the life of the martial arts, and everyone steals from everyone whether it be technique, credentials, name recognition or what have you. Another sad fact is that the courts don't take this stuff seriously. The law could care less for Martial Arts politics, and the law cannot recognize authentic martial arts schools from McDojo's. That should explain why there are so many lyers in the martial arts; they can get away with lying about their credentials and there is almost no reprocussion by law for it. The only thing the law cares about in regards to martial arts is if there is a fight; then the law works against the martial artist.
Bottom line: for legal recourse of any kind in terms of "sueing," you have to prove beyond resonable doubt that you recieved "damages" from the actions of the other person. So, even if your school lost $$ because someone used your logo, you would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that your loss was due to that other persons actions, and not by your own inefficencies in running your own school. This is very difficult to do because there is nothing imperical to measure this evidence that the courts can look at and say "O.K., I see." Heres is what I mean: Lets say you can show records that prove that all of your students left you and went to the defendent All the defendent then does is argue that the students left because he offers a better product, not because of a slander. End of the case, you lose. Your stuck because there almost is no way to imperically prove the defendents point otherwise. Even if they steal your logo and violate copywrite laws, the most they can do is get an order for you to change the logo. Even if there are fines involved, given that you can't really "prove" damages under the circumstance, these fines will not be very lucrative.
So, legal recourse is not the way to go. You would have to spend years and thousands of $$ to build up your case, and if you won you would be lucky to get even a small % of what you spent in time and $$.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad new about this one.
3. What can you do, then? I think that the best course of action would be to continue to offer a better product then the competition. That's first off. Secondly, tell the truth. Take the high road, but tell the truth. If someone asks about this person, and they are a clown, then don't be afraid to tell it like it is. People will respect your honesty, and generally will be able to tell the difference between you honesty and the other persons lies.
Just my $0.02!!!
