
Ask HN: Trademark infringement for rejected / awaiting response trademark - CX4048
I was wondering if anyone has any experience on dealing with trademark infringements, specifically if someone is sending them out against yourself &#x2F; your company when that trademark has been rejected &#x2F; awaiting response.<p>Currently, I run a side project that has been up for a year or so, and ranks pretty well on the Google for a certain term.  It is one of several of similar sites that all use this trademark and when the site was created, there was no trademark.  Recently, a competing service has applied for a trademark and claims to have been in business for longer than my service (which is true) but the trademark has a status of rejected &#x2F; awaiting response.  That being said, the competing service is sending out Trademark infringement letters to third party services I use and getting those services cancelled because of it.<p>I feel like these services should at least validate the Trademark before making a decision and I have sent responses back informing (and providing uspto links to the unapproved trademark) each service that it isn&#x27;t trade marked yet.<p>What are my options?  I am certainly not in a position to legally fight the trademark, but it really irks me that someone (who I didn&#x27;t know existed, even while searching for competing services) is able to shut be down, even without a valid trademark.
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dangrossman
Trademarks need not be on the federal register to exist, or to be enforced
successfully. Consult a lawyer.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark)

