Recently we were asked to relinquish our claim over our original Twitter name, Unvelope.
If you all recall, we held a little contest to name our Twitter account because the full name "UncommonEnvelope" was too long to fit the Twitter parameters of a maximum of 13 letters. After trying to think of anything that would work we settled on the handle "Unvelope" - a hybrid of the two full words in our studio name.
And here we were, gliding smoothly through building our following since July when, on December 11 (happy birthday to me) we received an email from a company on the east coast (whose name I will not mention, but you can probably figure out on your own) claiming that we were infringing on their trademark (the application for which was filed on December 10, the day before I was contacted).
This company...
- Who seems to have no product and hasn't made a single sale to date...
- Who seems to know nothing of trademark law (or else they would know that they are seeking a "servicemark" not a "trademark")...
- Who has no website other than a splash page (but claims to be in beta, even though you need to have actual users testing your site to be in beta... I don't even think they are in alpha)...
- Who has no advertising to back up their claim of having such materials (they sent links from GoDaddy.com where they registered their site as their claim to advertising! Laughable!)...
- And who needs to hire an outside design firm to design a logo even though they, apparently, design e-cards....
...has been bullying me and threatening to pursue this claim legally.
After two irritatingly condescending letters from their big-shot New York law firm (who happens to have a RECENT history of being sued for Employment Discrimination and Religious Bias after the firm's managing partner apparently called one of their employees, an Orthodox Jew, "Jew Boy" - classy), we (my lawyer, my business partner, and I) all agreed that a twitter name is not worth any kind of legal hassle and costs this may bring...
- Even though we are not competing in the same area of commerce...
- Even though we are not offering the same product or service...
- Even though we are not trying to use the name for anything other than our twitter handle...
- Even though our legal counsel assured is if this went to court, our case would win, hands down.
And yes, Mr. NY Lawyer (or shall I call you "bigot"), to answer your question I DO have legal counsel but I don't need to pay them $250/hr to ask you for proof of trademark use. And it is not unethical for me to communicate with you without my lawyer until I CHOOSE to identify them. This small business girl knows a thing or two about corporate law.
So, to the oh-so technologically savvy e-card company who can not even think ahead enough to reserve a twitter name when you apparently started your business in February 09, you can have it. We know it didn't even occur to you to have a twitter account until you
googled the term "unvelope" and the first dozen listings point back to our account. In fact, I don't even think you come up until page two...
Anyway, good luck. And when your not-so-original idea tanks because the market is already flooded (hallmark.com, evites.com, ecards.com, someecards.com, bluemountain.com, etc, etc, etc...) with your not-so-original idea, maybe I'll reclaim the not-so-clever name, just for the hell of it.
I wonder what Daba Designs, the creator of the actual product
the UNvelope would have to say about it all. Or maybe I should order some UNvelopes and use them for some direct mail marketing. Now THAT would be something to tweet about.
PS. Now you can follow us by our new handle:
UncommonStudio
