[freudling]

I've got an interesting situation here. If anyone is interested in hearing, PM me. I'd like to get a few opinions before I move forward.

Thanks!!!

[Laminar]

LawyersNN

[imitchellg5]

In his own words®: Nobody cares™
Gotta give some sort of juicy preview.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

In his own words®: Nobody cares™
Gotta give some sort of juicy preview.

Hey, you just infringed on my Trademark.

[imitchellg5]

Wow. Rarely does a pun ever work so well on the internet!

[Spheric Harlot]

How was that a pun?

[imitchellg5]

You'll get over it.

[bstone]

Fixed™

[reader50]

Originally Posted by freudling 

I've got an interesting situation here. If anyone is interested in hearing, PM me. I'd like to get a few opinions before I move forward.

You'll need to give a bit more info to get any interest. A Sci-Fi or other fictional tie-in would help. Like if you bought the Weyland-Yutani rights, and someone is making hardware without your cut. Or the fixer is using your prose in her "suicide notes" on jobs.

As it is written, it sounds dry. You'll probably draw smart replies and nothing useful.

[freudling]

So what I'm looking to do is sue them for trademark infringement based on the following:

1. identical trade-dress in many respects (same color schemes - color and pattern)
2. the color is non-functional
3. we have demonstrated first use in commerce
4. we are in the exact same industry and are direct competitors
5. there is demonstrated confusion in the market

They won't cooperate, I've spoken to them. This is a sort of a known company, and we are competitors. They ended up lying to us and claiming they had first use, but it was bullsxt, we did an investigation. I've got people asking me if they stole our brand or if we're a part of them. These guys, in short, are dorks, and have been accused of copying other companies in other areas of the industry we're in. We're pretty certain based on all this they just copied and approximated our brand/logo. They entered the market well after us, and basically, the two word marks, although different names, look identical in many respects.

Neither of us have our word marks with trade-dress registered with the USPTO and other countries. Yes, I know, we should do that. However, I'm not looking to get into some debate over filing a trademark. The reality is that with the Internet, it's much easier to demonstrate first use in commerce because there's lots of things like domain name registrations, cached pages... lots of time stamps that support and reveal when you started using your trademark in commerce.

I'm not saying it's bad to register, it's good, but trademarks don't have to be registered. Anyway, we are both not registered so now, I'm wondering, we're going to get a cease and desist letter sent out to them, which will likely result in nothing because these guys are really punks, but somehow they got well funded recently.

Another aspect to this is that the things they say in the media is really low brow garbage. We don't want to be associated with that kind of talk. They swear, act immature, etc. That alone is potentially damaging to our brand, image, and business.

Now, after the cease and desist letter fails, which it will, wondering advice on how strong a case we can have, and whether I can sue in US Federal Court for Trademark Infringement in their local State.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by freudling 

These guys, in short, are dorks,

these guys are really punks

I feel better now!

(sorry, I've got nothing useful for you....)