
Ask HN: Cease & Desist on using the word egress. Sign it away for eternity? - new23d
I&#x27;m a small time founder of a TLS firewall. It is published on AWS and GCP marketplaces as &#x27;secure egress gateway&#x27; and allows outbound&#x2F;egress VPC traffic to be filtered by TLS versions and hostnames (which are set through the parameter store in AWS for example.) It&#x27;s DPI and not a proxy.<p>Last month, received a C&amp;D from lawyers of a co that holds trademark over the e word. So far, I have agreed to remove all use of the word except in a descriptive context and the time has come to sign an agreement with the other co.<p>The proposed agreement is perpetual. My lawyers strongly suspect the other co would refuse to agree to include a term that the agreement terminates after a set period of time, or if they were to lose all of their registered trademark rights in that word. Lawyers are funded by an insurance policy I had luckily taken out and bill every 6 minutes of their time.<p>Should I push back on the perpetuity of this agreement? Should I get a second opinion?
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thaumasiotes
What are you getting out of this agreement? They already can't stop you from
using a word descriptively. They can sue you and lose, but they can also do
that after you sign the agreement, on exactly the same theory they'd use
anyway ("this use isn't descriptive").

Also:

The product name "secure egress gateway" is obviously a descriptive use of the
word (it's a gateway for egress traffic), and therefore cannot violate a
trademark. Are they asking you to avoid non-descriptive use of the word ("for
your email security needs, contact Egress Software Technologies!"), or are
they asking you to avoid using the word in product names regardless of whether
the use is descriptive?

~~~
new23d
It's about the use of that word in the name of a product.

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tothrowaway
If you don't mind sharing, what kind of insurance policy did you obtain? It's
surprising to hear an insurance product would cover your legal fees for
something like this.

~~~
new23d
It's a professional indemnity insurance for business in the UK. Covers defence
costs as long as they can arrange the defence and everything is done with
their prior approval, and the area of intellectual property infringement is in
scope.

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EVurja
Egress is such a generic word in technology. Wonder if anyone can even
trademark a generic word.

~~~
thaumasiotes
[http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87289033&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87289033&caseType=SERIAL_NO)

> Mark Literal Elements: EGRESS

> The mark consists of standard characters without claim to any particular
> font style, size, or color.

> For: Computer software and mobile device software for application and
> database integration; computer software and mobile device software for use
> in data security, namely, email and data classification, email and data
> encryption, secure file transfer, secure automated file transfer, secure
> online collaboration, secure access to encrypted email and data, secure
> email and data management, and secure email and data backup, archive and
> recovery

(I guess you'll have to redo the search for case number 87289033 yourself. I'm
so glad the government keeps up to date with modern single-page-web-app design
principles for what is literally just a document store. >_> )

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rckoepke
I wonder, when www.egress.com picked the name Egress, did they have a
discussion where they decided it would be a normal part of their business plan
to sue unrelated companies ad infinitum, for the life of their business?

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DrScump
Is it too late to sue P.T. Barnum?

[http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html](http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html)

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stargrazer
Can you state who this company is?

Isn't "secure egress gateway" descriptive as well?

~~~
thaumasiotes
I assume OP is running
[https://chasersystems.com/](https://chasersystems.com/) , and he's being
threatened by [https://www.egress.com/](https://www.egress.com/) .

But yes, obviously "secure egress gateway" is descriptive and can't violate a
US trademark. Both companies are located in the UK; who knows what their
trademark law says. Maybe there's a bakery over there with exclusive rights to
the word "biscuit". But I doubt it.

