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Handling Accusations of Trademark Infringement?

Posted by Cliff on from the fighting-about-words-with-more-words dept.

Dredd2Kad asks: "Recently I've been accused of trademark infringement because of something in the metadata of my website. What are my rights? Should I stand and fight or let it go? Part of me doesn't care, because my website is nothing but a special interest group, the other part of me is mad as hell that someone has come to my place and threatened me. I feel the plaintiff chose to trademark something really generic (HardRadio), and my choice of metadata (hard radio) should be allowed some wiggle room, especially since I'm not a commercial entity like they are. Please read my story and let me know what you think. I know someone out there must have had a similar problem." In addition to seeking professional legal advice, what other steps can one take to handle these problems?

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. play with grammer. by Johnathon_Dough · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "It's not hard, Radio is easy to use."

    --
    If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
  2. Donald Trump said it best... by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Donald Trump said in his first book, The Art of the Deal, that if you don't stand and fight when someone wrongs you, you will be seen as weak, and the vultures will have no problems trying to screw you over and over again. I firmly believe that -- and, hey, a guy worth billions is worth listening to, IMHO.

  3. Cost Them Money by Euphonious+Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    For every message their lawyer sends, ask questions that will take lots of time. Stall, ask for further explanations, examples. The client gets billed for it all at extortionate rates. While it enriches the lawyers inequitably, it also makes the client less inclined to keep pursuing the matter when it's just something stupid.

    Ask for proof that they have registered "hard radio" in addition to the one-word bumpycaps "HardRadio". Ask for proof that in addition to "HardRadio" they registered "hardradio". Ask if they are claiming the words "hard" and "radio" individually. Ask if they are claiming "radio hard". Use your imagination.

  4. Re:Just pull the tags by Tye_Informer · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Of course you could pull a Dave Barry and post contact information for Tracy Barnes, thus leveraging the might of slashdot against him.

    Another idea is to get this story on as many blogs as possible. That way searches for "hard radio" pull up the story of some lawyer beating up on a "public access", not for profit, little-guy website.

    Paybacks....

    Of course, I'm not sure how you pull this kind of attention back when hardradio.com lawyers back off.... Well they did bring it on themselves.