Can any maker here help me answer a trademark cease and desist letter?
Hi makers,
I'm a fellow indie maker like you. I've been developing an online publishing platform called Airtyper for some time now. It hasn't launched, yet.
Today morning, I got a cease and desist letter from an attorney representing a company called Airtype, who happens to own a trademark for the word "Airtype".
They're asking me to change my product's name to something else.
I checked their website. They're an app design/development service company based in the US. My app is a SaaS app concerning publishing blogs online, company due to be registered in India.
How am I harming their business? I have no idea.
Can anyone help me regarding this? Any advice? Should I change the name? Or fight the case? I'm also seeking legal counsel regarding this.
I have replied you in the twitter thread ;) https://twitter.com/fajarsiddiqFS/status/1137230621221113856
I've been part of the process in a few of these letters. From my experience, similarities to the name or having names that sound the same is sadly a big factor unless the brands are completely unrelated (different business types)
Your project isn't really close to the same as Airtype, but the name similarities is definitely something that's going to weigh the decision to a loss for you if you choose to fight it.
My friend WON his case a month ago, and he still ended up owing $12,000 for attorneys. I personally would just change it and be thankful it wasn't launched yet, still very unfortunate…
Yeah, that's what Fajar suggested as well. I've started looking for alternate names.
I'm going through trademark filing problems as well, and they're a tough catch.
To be very blunt in my opinion of this case though - next time, make sure to do your due diligence and verify there's no similar names in your industry! It saves a ton of time.
On a related note: what if you registered a domain name + launched your site in say, 2014, and someone else starts a company under the same name in 2017 and trademarks the name. Would you still need to change your name, even if you can prove you've used it since 2014?
I have the same question. I suppose the safest thing to do would be to immediately register a company and file a trademark for your brand name as soon as you start considering working on the product on a serious note.
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