I think it'd be one thing if we were a gaming company and used a thought bubble with the same look and design that Zynga uses for their With Friends family of marks, but there's no possibility of confusion there and on top of that, we don't operate in the same space. We're a dating startup. CupidForFriends.com is taken otherwise we would have just switched and 301 redirected.
Got to say I disagree here. You might be in a different space but you're close enough for confusion. "With Friends" is a valuable trademark for them, they spent a lot on building that trademark, and you are piggybacking on it intentionally (I could be wrong about the intentionally part, but I'd be surprised).
I really think you should change the name. If you go on a full out fight with Zynga, you won't find much sympathy I think.
That said, some very nice PR here, and you can probably look forward to some more PR once you acquiesce :)
> With Friends" is a valuable trademark for them, they spent a lot on building that trademark
"With Friends" should be a tremendously weak trademark if there was any kind of fairness or logic. Every single online game has said the phrase: "Play online with friends." Are we allowed to connect with friends on friendster or are they next on the list?
"With friends " is _not_ a registered trademark, anymore than "drink " is a registered trademark of Coca Cola.
In addition you are so completely wrong about the communitys feelings towards Zynga (and you presume malice wrt. Cupid) that my guess is you have a personal bias in this game. Is that correct?
> "With friends " is _not_ a registered trademark, anymore than "drink " is a registered trademark of Coca Cola.
I wasn't aware of that, from the article I assumed they had this covered.
> In addition you are so completely wrong about the communitys feelings towards Zynga (and you presume malice wrt. Cupid) that my guess is you have a personal bias in this game. Is that correct?
I wasn't suggesting the HN community was pro-Zynga, but I can see how that came across. What I intended to convey was that Zynga was clearly right, which is why a fight wouldn't garner sympathy. Though from the other comments it seems I'm wrong about that.
I do have a slight bias: jmtame and I are both YC founders. I felt very hesitant about posting my original comment, and went to great effort to make it neutral and focus on advice. I have no feelings towards Zynga at all, and no connection to them apart from having played Draw Something a little before it got acquired.
To be honest this was not intentional and I was kind of surprised by the initial email--as the search for new product names usually goes, we started by looking at what domain was available.
I suggest contacting a trademark attorney and see if you can get a short pro bono consultation. I'd ask about what they thought about your classification.
I'm not an attorney, but via http://www.iusmentis.com/trademarks/crashcourse/rights/ it says 'The most common type of trademark infringement probably occurs when somebody else sells a product or service under a name that in some way resembles a registered trademark, and the products in question are the same or similar to the registered products.'
Zynga's classes are IC 041. US 100 101 107. and IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038.
I'm no attorney, but I'd go talk to one about your classification.
And if you take Paul's advice, make sure you make part of the deal that Zynga will do forwarding of the old domain for you for 2 years so you can transition your 75K users over. Impact to them and your business is non-trivial.
In that case I apologize. I thought it was an intentional and clever play on their brands, like BangWithFriends did (though of course I could be wrong about that too).
Comments
I think it'd be one thing if we were a gaming company and used a thought bubble with the same look and design that Zynga uses for their With Friends family of marks, but there's no possibility of confusion there and on top of that, we don't operate in the same space. We're a dating startup. CupidForFriends.com is taken otherwise we would have just switched and 301 redirected.
Got to say I disagree here. You might be in a different space but you're close enough for confusion. "With Friends" is a valuable trademark for them, they spent a lot on building that trademark, and you are piggybacking on it intentionally (I could be wrong about the intentionally part, but I'd be surprised).
I really think you should change the name. If you go on a full out fight with Zynga, you won't find much sympathy I think.
That said, some very nice PR here, and you can probably look forward to some more PR once you acquiesce :)
> With Friends" is a valuable trademark for them, they spent a lot on building that trademark
"With Friends" should be a tremendously weak trademark if there was any kind of fairness or logic. Every single online game has said the phrase: "Play online with friends." Are we allowed to connect with friends on friendster or are they next on the list?
"With friends " is _not_ a registered trademark, anymore than "drink " is a registered trademark of Coca Cola.
In addition you are so completely wrong about the communitys feelings towards Zynga (and you presume malice wrt. Cupid) that my guess is you have a personal bias in this game. Is that correct?
> "With friends " is _not_ a registered trademark, anymore than "drink " is a registered trademark of Coca Cola.
I wasn't aware of that, from the article I assumed they had this covered.
> In addition you are so completely wrong about the communitys feelings towards Zynga (and you presume malice wrt. Cupid) that my guess is you have a personal bias in this game. Is that correct?
I wasn't suggesting the HN community was pro-Zynga, but I can see how that came across. What I intended to convey was that Zynga was clearly right, which is why a fight wouldn't garner sympathy. Though from the other comments it seems I'm wrong about that.
I do have a slight bias: jmtame and I are both YC founders. I felt very hesitant about posting my original comment, and went to great effort to make it neutral and focus on advice. I have no feelings towards Zynga at all, and no connection to them apart from having played Draw Something a little before it got acquired.
To be honest this was not intentional and I was kind of surprised by the initial email--as the search for new product names usually goes, we started by looking at what domain was available.
I suggest contacting a trademark attorney and see if you can get a short pro bono consultation. I'd ask about what they thought about your classification.
I'm not an attorney, but via http://www.iusmentis.com/trademarks/crashcourse/rights/ it says 'The most common type of trademark infringement probably occurs when somebody else sells a product or service under a name that in some way resembles a registered trademark, and the products in question are the same or similar to the registered products.'
Zynga's classes are IC 041. US 100 101 107. and IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038.
I don't see dating services in there: http://tess2.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-brs?sect2=THESOFF&sec...
I'm no attorney, but I'd go talk to one about your classification.
And if you take Paul's advice, make sure you make part of the deal that Zynga will do forwarding of the old domain for you for 2 years so you can transition your 75K users over. Impact to them and your business is non-trivial.
Thanks, that's helpful to know. We're working with some IP folks on this right now.
In that case I apologize. I thought it was an intentional and clever play on their brands, like BangWithFriends did (though of course I could be wrong about that too).
No worries. I appreciate your comments in this thread, even if we both disagree about the reach of the trademark.