
An Early Retirement - gracegarey
http://blog.watsi.org/post/77866208338/an-early-retirement
======
chimeracoder
I'm assuming the company in question is Blue Cross Blue Shield. This kind of
sucks, but looking at their logo[0], I would have to agree that they're
uncomfortably close, if they are deemed to be in similar enough markets.

The only question is whether Watsi and BCBS operate within similar enough
markets for their use to be considered infringement - I'm less sure of that.

On a related note, this is why early-stage startups shouldn't get too attached
to their branding, product name, and/or company name. You're better off
focusing your efforts on your product itself.

And don't waste money (as an _early_ startup) on filing for trademark
protection - because US trademark law respects common law use (ie, if you used
it first, you are protected, even if you didn't file for protection)[1].
Registering your trademark does nothing if someone else (with more expensive
lawyers) was using it first and can demonstrate that use.

And even if they accept your registration, that doesn't mean that it will hold
up. Just like patents, the USPTO leaves this up to courts to decide. You could
easily register something like the Coca-Cola[2] logo and they could accept it,
but that doesn't prevent Coca-Cola from litigating against you and winning.
They have no great way to check for conflicts, and they err on the side of
issuing the trademark (and collecting your fee) so that the courts can be the
final arbiters[3].

(Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice).

[0]
[https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=blue%20cross%...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=blue%20cross%20blue%20shield&tbs=imgo:1)

[1] This is the opposite of the way that patent law works.

[2] In reality, probably not Coca-Cola _per se_ , because it's popular enough
that anybody reading your application would notice it, but a trademark that's
very similar to an existing logo.

[3] If you're wondering, no, they won't refund your fee if your trademark is
deemed invalid.

~~~
will_brown
I assumed the same company as you. However, I fall on the other side of the
analysis, that Watsi is 1. not interfering with any trademarks registered by
BCBS (all BCBS registered marks, which I found in TESS, are word/design marks,
which means the blue cross on its own is not protected, it is only protected
when it is accompanied by the word mark); and 2. otherwise not causing any
confusion in the markplace (for example who is going to donate to Watsi under
the belief they were donating to BCBS, there is a test of the reasonable
consumer and BCBS would have to prove actual confusion in the
marketplace...good luck on that).

I am sure Watsi being who they are made an informed decision and with the
advice of counsel. The sad thing is the advice was probably to the effect that
while Watsi has a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on their use of the
mark, BCBS has enough money to try to enforce the mark without putting a dent
in their litigation budget, and Watsi's money would be better spent on Watsi's
mission of helping people not in defending litigation. Nevertheless I would
have felt good defending Watsi's use of the mark.

~~~
jbooth
An additional note, trademark lawyers are often _obligated_ to try and sue
people over trademarks, even if they'd rather not, because if they don't
zealously defend their trademark, it's considered 'weakened' and that can then
become evidence against them in some future case when a different party
infringes.

So the blue cross people were doing what they had to do. It sure is funny
though how almost every law is interpreted in a way that maximizes future
legal work involved.

~~~
crusso
It's almost like most of our laws were written by a bunch of lawyers.

~~~
Perdition
The requirement to protect your trademark is a good thing.

There are a fairly limited number of useful marks because companies need
fairly short names. Imagine if trademarks worked like copyright and modern
companies had to worry about infringing the mark of a company that hasn't
traded since 1940?

------
hoggle
Wow, this really made my evening :)

I just donated two hours worth of my consulting time for two fellow human
beings in need somewhere else in the world and it will have serious impact.
I'm in total bliss <3 nothing feels like helping others - you should try
donating!

The only thing I would like to see watsi doing is to offer donations with
bitcoin! Integration with bitpay is really easy too. If watsi is rails based
(seems so) they would have support for bitpay out of the box with active
merchant!

Go spread some love folks, it feels great!

[http://watsi.org](http://watsi.org)

Edit:

[https://bitpay.com](https://bitpay.com) (they offer immediate conversion to
local currencies too!)

[https://github.com/Shopify/active_merchant/tree/13e0ab52727b...](https://github.com/Shopify/active_merchant/tree/13e0ab52727baaed5860dd093924a3662e2223ac/lib/active_merchant/billing/integrations/bit_pay)

~~~
gracegarey
Thanks so much for donating! Appreciate the bitpay info -- will look into it.

------
runewell
I remember when looking for a new company domain feeling like this SNL comedy
skit: [http://vimeo.com/82393638](http://vimeo.com/82393638)

Medical companies are ruthless here. I ran an e-commerce store that sold
medical equipment, it was nearly impossible to buy any .com domain name
related to the medical industry. We ended up settling with JazzMed because one
of our founders liked Jazz and we figured it was a unique brand. We ran the
company for about 6 months slowly getting to a point where we had roughly 10
orders a day. Needless to say, once we started ranking well in Google a health
care company called Jazz Pharmaceuticals threatened legal action, even went
through the trouble of sending a certified letter from their lawyer. After
reviewing our options and after receiving a formal complaint to the court from
the company we decided to shut down and comply with their demands which was to
transfer the domain ownership to them. We just didn't have the resources to
hire a lawyer and keep the company going. The sad part is that there are so
many businesses in that space it's nearly impossible to create a company name
that doesn't sound like an existing one.

~~~
GFischer
Naming is such a problem in the medical space, there are special provisions
for trademarking medicines (class 5 marks), where they can be similar as long
as they are used for very different ailments and there's no risk of confusion.

It's still extremely hard, see this PDF:

[http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v05/i08/pdf/802pat...](http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v05/i08/pdf/802patents.pdf)

(Standard disclaimer - IANAL)

------
GigabyteCoin
So <insert big corporation here> wants watsi to stop using their logo by date
X, and watsi proceeds to print that logo on t-shirts and sell that logo-laden
t-shirt.

Isn't this akin to waving a stack of cash right in front of <insert big
corporation here> lawyer's nose?

Is watsi's only saving grace the fact that they are not directly profiting
from these t-shirt sales?

Seems kindof risky, no?

~~~
zeckalpha
My guess is they need to get rid of the shirts soon, or else they can no
longer use them.

~~~
masonhensley
From my understanding of the tee shirt company they are using, all these
shirts are going to be custom made per the amount of orders made.

~~~
zeckalpha
Very interesting.

------
bullcity
I hope they aren't planning on changing it to red. I remember in 2005, the Red
Cross was going after video game companies that used a red cross on their
health/medpack items in-game.

~~~
sp332
A green cross also has other meanings :)

------
akcreek
I appreciate what Watsi does, but I'm mostly buying a shirt because of the
great speech Chase gave at Startup School [1]. It was of the most value to me
at that event. Thanks.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlT3UhC7NwQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlT3UhC7NwQ)

------
mrmch
Title had me worried for a moment! The whole team wanted shirts, so we loaded
up -- we're going to wear that blue contraband with pride.

~~~
atonse
Same here. Ordered one and will wear it with pride.

------
gabemart
When you say "invited to a bonfire at Ocean Beach", that doesn't mean you're
going to burn a big heap of branded trash on the beach, right? Or am I just
being a spoil-sport?

~~~
gracegarey
No trash burning, just a little party to send off our blue logo in style :)

~~~
thomasjudge
You should burn an effigy of a man as an informal protest against "the
man"...you could call him the "burning guy" or something like that..

~~~
boomzilla
burning cross?

------
alexnking
Not knowing what Watsi was, this is ridiculous. Finding out they're an
organization that gets donations for medical treatments, being threatened by
an insurance company? Beyond ridiculous.

~~~
timjahn
Health insurance companies in the United States don't exist to help people
with medical problems. They exist to make as much money as possible.

~~~
josefresco
Everybody's got to make a living ... even your doctor.

~~~
prawn
Big companies tend to go a little beyond just making a living. The doctor and
support staff at that level are working with patients.

At a larger company, you have swathes of employees detached from the customer
and focused on the numbers. I think that's probably where the empathy for
customers can become unstuck.

------
bluedino
We had the same problem with one of our logos and BCBS. We had a green '+'
symbol as one of our letter 'T'. We're in the wellness industry. That was
enough to get them to send a letter and it was cheaper to have a designer and
developer go through and change everything (3-4 days of designer time and 1
day of developer time) than it was to have a lawyer draft up a response.

------
grageth
AWESOME! I was running out of reasons to dislike the American health insurance
industry.

------
ChuckMcM
Well played Watsi, well played. Hope it goes viral.

------
rafeed
I ordered one not just to stick it to BCBS, but also because it's great
knowing all of this is going directly to the patients at Watsi. Well played.

------
growthhack
Kudos to turning a bad situation, with a positive attitude and a sense of
humor, into traffic!

------
vinceguidry
I wonder if a more measured reaction rather than simply caving would have done
them better.

They could have had their lawyers draw up a reasoned defense, then used that
to wrangle a settlement offer whereby Watsi takes a large-ish donation in
return for changing their logo.

Reason being a big battle would hit the larger plaintiff much harder in terms
of public opinion. A little brinksmanship could do them a world of good.

Thoughts? Any legal eagles want to weigh in on whether this be a feasible
course of action?

~~~
lauradhamilton
Yours is not so much a legal question as it is a negotiation question.

I think you're probably right, but brinkmanship would be incredibly time-
consuming, stressful, and distracting. They have more important things to
worry about right now.

If your question is, who would win the battle in the court of public opinion?
For sure Watsi would win. No doubt in my mind.

~~~
qq66
How relevant is the court of public opinion in a matter like this? Seems like
Watsi realized they had more to lose than gain.

~~~
trysomething
It might actually be great publicity. Watsi is awesome, but not well known
amongst the general populace (who are probably far more likely to donate to
dubious organizations like the "christian children's fund").

As Chase Adam said in his startup school speech, Watsi merely has to get
people to look at it's patients' pictures and read their stories.

------
baldajan
It's a shame. I do think they look somewhat look a like, and there are solid
reasons why it would or wouldn't cause confusion in trade.

But if the plaintiff is indeed BCBS, then Watsi would have definitely lost.
Since BCBS will probably be regarded as a famous mark, and any similarity
would cause an issue for Watsi.

It's unfortunate and sad nonetheless.

------
argumentum
I'm guessing part of the agreement is that Watsi doesn't publicly "out" the
insurance company. Well, we have lots of good writers here, some with an
audience, but without any legal association to Watsi.

Let's make this _so costly_ that no mega-corporation dares to bully non-
profits in this way again.

~~~
evan_
> Let's make this so costly that no mega-corporation dares to bully non-
> profits in this way again.

Why?

------
ldubinets
They have now changed

"a multi-billion dollar health insurance company threatened to take us to
court for trademark infringement"

to

"a multi-billion dollar health insurance company threatened to oppose our
trademark application"

Was that because of careful consideration and consulting or again because of
said health insurance company?

------
zbruhnke
Thanks Watsi for having a sense oh humor about it. I bought a shirt because I
love your mission as a whole and the post have me a much needed smile
yesterday. I wish more people were light hearted like this/ took themselves
less seriously faced with situations like these!

------
chunsaker
The tone of this post is yet another reason to love team Watsi. Really fun for
an early stage company (for-profit or non) to be spending time and money on
this instead of on more interesting things like building their business.

------
hawkharris
Similar industries. Very similar logo. Unfortunate, but it makes sense.

I give credit to Watsi for its response, though. This is a cool and creative
way to deal with a forced change in brand.

------
ChrisCinelli
+1 for the bonfire... See you there

------
qnaal
Childish.

Oh well, sounds like money will be coming in, and free advertising, so mission
success, right?

------
pearjuice
Am I the only one who has serious question marks with Watsi? Portraying itself
as a non-profit hocus-pocus third-world-helper, why does it have so many
investors and such a big riced crew?

I can't help but think how it is non-profit, but ONLY after investors and
founders are paid good sums of money. Not that there is anything wrong with
that, I am just saying it is shady.

~~~
simantel
They have "investors" (which are actually just donors and potentially board
members) to fund their operations. And, in fact, they an operations fund
that's separate from donations made for patients. All donations being made
towards patients are used exclusively for patient care.

