Handling Accusations of Trademark Infringement?

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?

Comments

slashdot

[Finuvir]

Get you page slashdotted -> problem solved

In addition to seeking professional legal advice,

[Feztaa]

Step One. Seek professional legal advice.
Step Two. Disregard all advice that you might get on slashdot, with the exception of the people who tell you to:
Step Three. Seek professional legal advice.

Meta data is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Google gives it almost no weight (descriptions get a little bit of weight, but keywords almost none), and neither does any other modern search engine. It was just too easy to abuse, so they rightly dropped the idea. I'm not saying you necessarily need to give up your fight, but you're fighting over an antiquated piece of search optimization.

Cost Them Money

[Euphonious Coward]

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.

Re:Simple really

[DukeyToo]

IANAL, but unless it is a registered trademark (R), it is not really something they can enforce. Certainly, they cannot do anything about you using 2 separate words when their (TM) is on the combined words. It would be thrown out of court in minutes.

When a company wants to change their (TM) to an (R), they have to go through a registration process, part of which involves checking for existing uses of the term. Should there be too many instances of the term that are prior to their own, then it becomes more difficult for them to acquire the (R). It is my guess that they are going through the registration process, and are trying to smooth the way as much as possible.

Ignore them if you want, change it if you want. Legally, you're safe. Again, IANAL, so my advice is legally worthless.

His letter

[silicon not in the v]

Did you read the letter he sent to them? For one thing, using the phrase, "Fight For Rock isn't even a pimple on your ass" isn't exactly the best way to present yourself as a respectful person interested in calm negotiation.
Also, I found this comment funny, "So I've decided to contact some legal experts and do some research so I can know exactly what my rights are." All right! I've always wanted to be a legal expert.
There are several other glaring grammatical issues in there too. I find this one of the worst things he could have done. Why in the world would you fire off an angry, inflammatory letter to them and then seek legal advice?

What HardRadio(tm) is saying..

[CaptainTux]

I see a lot of people here saying "mess with their heads: ask if they own X". You are totally missing the point of what HardRadio(tm) is saying.

They are no longer claiming trademark infringement. They are claiming trademark confusion and dilloution(sp). It's the exact same thing that Microsoft(tm) is doing with Lindows. They aren't really saying Lindows is infringing on the Microsoft Windows(tm) trademark but rather that they are creating brand confusion.

So even though FFR might not actually be infringing on the HardRadio(tm) trademark, they might still be ruled against because they are creating brand confusion. Asking questions to the lawyers as suggested wouldn't tie the lawyers. It would just show that he has no idea what he's doing.

Re:They're only doing what they have to...

[0x0d0a]

To hardradio, v. colloq.

1. To claim unrealistic rights under trademark law. Those Microsoft people really hardradio like mad when it comes to Lindows, or I'll bet SCO's pissed that they only claimed patents and copyright infringement, and can't try to hardradio Linus for using the suffix "-nix".

Re:Just pull the tags

[Tye_Informer]

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.