Brand protection/trademarking

[zetroc]

Besides the marketing aspect of branding, what about brand protection? Logos, fonts, original designs, "signature details" - what can framebuilders do to avoid being totally ripped off, and avoid brand dilution?

There was an incident pretty recently with one builder, knowingly or not, using another builder's website text almost verbatim. Said builder also had some iconography that yet another builder uses widely, and even the name of his enterprise was identical to yet another builder's nom de torch. Who's to say that didn't hurt the other builders' brands?

I'm especially interested to hear about logo/font design and font licensing (if applicable) and trademarking of same.

thanks,
steve fng

[e-RICHIE]

There was an incident pretty recently with one builder, knowingly or not, using another builder's website text almost verbatim.

that happened to me and i noticed it around 2004 or so. maybe 2005. i saw my own words, diction, sentence structure - all of it - mined and pasted two different pages of another cat's site. it seems like forever ago and i recall being beside myself with rage. i decided to email the fellow and simply add the links with a comment like, "...some of this appears very familiar to me". the reply i got was conciliatory and the reason given (for the theft) was that he said he never knew/expected me to notice it and that the www was much bigger and wide-reaching than he anticipated.

the pages were rewritten and the two of us have been pals ever since atmo.

[Clockwork]

Last year I trademarked "Clockwork Bikes" under the bicycle category for around $400. I had intended to send Windsor and Harry v. Larry a cease and desist letter. Though I found out this comes with some risk. It used to be that a company couldn't argue before a judge that your trademark should be dissolved unless you took them to court. Now, simply initiating contact is enough for them to take the matter to court and ask a judge to dissolve your trademark. I would most likely win if I could afford the lawyer fees, but I cannot. So I won't be poking the hornet's nest. Just hoping no body will be able to take my name away from me.

-Joel

[suspectdevice]

Prior art is everything. I've never had to slap any jerkfaces around but Kevin(the founder of the brand-Logo and name trademarked in 1993) ended up going to law school because he has so much fun writing vicious letters to people who violate I.P.

We've talked about going after the Dutch company that makes Spooky brakes for years. It would be a little bit more trouble than it's worth as we weren't in the CX market until I inserted us into it in '08 so the issue of prior art is a little sticky there. I don't think there is any money to be made off of those guys- although I have seen some confusion in the marketplace recently between the two brands. We do hold European trademark rights so it should theoretically be open and shut.

In 2008 we had to go after Halfords over in the U.K. who had snapped up Spooky for a model of shitty kids bike. Seeing that Halfords is huge and Spooky is almost a non-entity i was somewhat worried but we resolved the dispute with one nasty and two polite emails.
The prior art that we presented was a 6" thick book of press-clippings that pre-dated the Halfords bike.

I don't know how the prior-art issue works in the world of the Internet media though.

I should probably look into that...

[Dornbox]

More fuel, I believe that if you knowingly do nothing/ignore someone who is infringing on your trademark, you're screwed... permission by default or something (I'm sure that term is totally incorrect). I can't remember the legal mumbo jumbo but my wife, the attorney, wants me to take Pat Law so I'll stop asking her questions and coming up with "silly debates".... I prefer the term loop holes.

[Dazza]

that happened to me and i noticed it around 2004 or so. maybe 2005. i saw my own words, diction, sentence structure - all of it - mined and pasted two different pages of another cat's site. it seems like forever ago and i recall being beside myself with rage. i decided to email the fellow and simply add the links with a comment like, "...some of this appears very familiar to me". the reply i got was conciliatory and the reason given (for the theft) was that he said he never knew/expected me to notice it and that the www was much bigger and wide-reaching than he anticipated.

the pages were rewritten and the two of us have been pals ever since atmo.

Folks
That was me
and Richard was most gracious about the whole thing.
and I thank him for that.

In 2001 I was working at resuming making bike frames locally after the last 6 years of being on the road with the teams, and also full time as I did not return to my bike shop connections.
The whole frame making industry direction changed during my time away from the frame work bench.
I was working from 7.00am till 6.00pm in the workshop, and in the evenings doing wheel building, paper work,and learning how to basically use a computer for the first time. My evenings would finish at 11.00 pm, - 1.00am.
I was too brain dead tired in the evenings to be creative let alone think about my directions (also living alone so I did all the house stuff, dealing with an ill Mum as well)
Sorting out if I was going to be TIG welding for some one else to survive (doing welding courses at night) , taking on all bike jobs in the workshop to earn every dollar and throwing all the money into stock and tooling, and paying out the house completely.
To get the website started I did a barter with a some one and I had dead lines to meet.
The website writing stuff overwhelmed me at the time and I went the easy way.
The website was to be temporary and to be replaced as soon as possible. But that job kept getting put off and put off even to this day it is not replaced and it is in bad need of replacing for over 8 years. However the new site is nearly ready to be made public. (a three year project so far, and I thank Mary Ann for this.)
In my defense and ignorance I never expected any one to read my www.site out side of Australia,
who the f--k would look at some thing from Australia.
I had no idea where my gig was going or what was to happen in the years to come.

Any how
I got an email from Richard Sachs, saying nice things about my work and a line
"...some of this appears very familiar to me".
Now I was floored to have an email from the USA, having lived and worked in isolation in Australia for over 20 years.
Then it all came back to me.
I was horrified. I was totally disgusted with myself.
I was supposed to have that text trashed within weeks of it being used.
all temporary
But it never happened, forgotten, moving onto the next job and task. Always doing too much.
Always thrashing my self to ensure I did not fail in this frame building gig and finding my direction and confirm it as my full time occupation.
In fact I had not read the text again till Richard contacted me.
I had it removed with in hours
Feeling nothing but total shame.
Feeling nothing but a failure to my ideals.
Because in life I reckon there is always two choices
the easy way
or the right way

Mistake it was
I did not realise it at the time of writting
but out of bad comes some good things
I have twice visited and stayed at Richard and Deb's house
and through that first email to me
lots of good and nice things came to me
Visits to Cirque and NAHBS
Contacts and friendships with many builders out side Australia
Frame Builders' Collective
even my sweetheart Mary Ann
one could argue it all came from that first email Richard sent me
I do not always agree with Richard on some subjects or directions.
however Richard does many good things and I thank him for this.
Thanks mate.

PS. I had the Tricycle pic up first ;-)

[Thylacine Cycles]

You mean this shit is live!?

[Dazza]

You mean this shit is live!?

the whole world is looking at you
right now
look at the window
see the big eye ball
it is watching you