

Ask YC: Should I be afraid of being sued? - yclogingisthis

Dear HN, please help:<p>We sell a software product. Today we received an e-mail from a software retailer, selling our product, that they were contacted by a law firm, since the law firm's client owns the trademark for a name under which we sold the software. We didn't know such trademark existed. The profits we made on this were around $2,000.<p>Should we be afraid of being sued?<p>To clarify:<p>1) our company isn't in the U.S.
2) we renamed the software
3) profits were around $2K<p>Thank you all for your help!
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jacquesm
Where is the trademark registered ? (ok, that seems to be answered, in the US,
and you are not in the US)

Does the company that contacted your retailer have representation in the same
jurisdiction as the retailer ?

Are they actively selling a product under that tradename ?

Is there possible confusion between your product and their product (trademarks
are only for a very specific market segment) ?

If you go and use google to search for that tradename do they come up ?

(if you're in the same jurisdiction and the answer is 'yes' to most of the
above then you may have an issue, if the reseller bought the product from you
and resold it in a different jurisdiction than yours then the buck probably
stops with the reseller).

Also, most of these are 'cease and desist', in other words, if you do not stop
we'll sue you.

At $2k the damage is very much more limited than what it will cost the
'offended' party to sue.

If the answer to all of the above is 'no', then I'd say give them your lawyers
address and see what happens next.

I'm not a laywer but I do hold several trademarks and have been involved in a
trademark dispute in the past.

I wouldn't sweat it too much, getting letters from lawyers is part and parcel
when you run a business. It's unfortunate but it is true.

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nostrademons
Your first letter in a trademark case will always be a cease & desist, if I
understand my IP lawyer friends correctly, so as long as you cease & desist
you should be fine. You'll get sued if you _don't_ cease & desist.

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yclogingisthis
Thank you all for your replies - I really apreciate this - what a great
community this is!

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jacquesm
You're welcome :)

I hope this will make you sleep a bit better...

~~~
yclogingisthis
A little bit :-) But thank you again!

