Comment by ChrisMarshallNY
5 months ago
I inadvertently used someone else's trademark, once. They weren't really doing a good job of managing it, so it didn't show up in any of my searches (which did not include the USPTO, which didn't have a decent Web presence, back then).
They contacted me, after it had been up (a Website), and said I needed to stop using it immediately.
They were right. I was wrong. It came down in an hour, and I set up a new site, using a different name, in a day or so.
I offered to give them the domain name. They didn't want it, but that was fine. I stopped using (and paying for) it immediately.
Almost happened to me once, but instead of threatening legal action the company asked for a couple of features, sent me free hardware, and a next-gen board that made my software redundant.
I created a plugin for a niche markup language recently. I asked them if I could use their logo for it on GH, they said yes, I did and added a note to the licence file explaining that their unregistered trademark was used with permission.
It's not hard to do the right thing, either upfront or once you realize you'd done the wrong thing.
On another note, I was once contacted through Apple's infringement service, that the app I wrote, was infringing on someone else's.
The app started with the first four letters of their app name ("Ambi").
they were probably going after any app that started with those four letters, so they would rank higher in searches. Since they used Apple's service, they could probably have had my app taken down, even though there was no way that their claim had any merit.
In that case, I was planning on changing the app's name, anyway (it wasn't a very good name), but I could see this kind of thing being a huge PItA.
Hell Apple has given me problems for infringing on my own trademark- accidentally registered an app under the wrong developer account and tried to just delete and recreate under the correct one, took multiple rounds of review and having to file my own trademark complaint for them to allow me to use the name again. Great way to get stuck in App Store Hell
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