What's In A Name?

Recently, I've received a cease and desist letter for using my company name from another company's lawyer. The name of my company is H2 SEO, llc with the web domains http://www.h2-seo.com and http://www.h2seo.com. The company pushing this issue is H2 Design with the domains http://www.h2.com and http://www.h2media.com.

The contention is that H2 Design owns the common law trademark for anything on the web related to H2 + other terms. In all fairness, they do have a page on their site at http://www.h2media.com/search/index.html where they give a brief description of their performing search engine optimization. This company did exist prior to the startup of my company, H2 SEO, llc.

Have others of you been challenged like this and won? I would be very interested to learn how this is dealt with beyond the obligatory "contact your lawyer" statements. I've worked very hard to build the business and the reputation, not to mention search engine rankings, to where they are now.

Any constructive comments and suggestions are appreciated.

 

I've heard that they have no legal bearing over taking domain names, just like MySpace doesn't, but I'm not sure if its 100% true.

 

They are after closing my business name and taking the domain names... Seems a far stretch to me to say they own a name that is a primary HTML tag (e.g. H2) and own through common law all on the web related to that. BTW, our company name began as Hudson (my last name) and there were 2 of us (e.g H2 SEO with the 2 being squared).

 

OK, here's the deal. I am not a lawyer and not offering legal advice. I'm just spitting text onto a screen and thinking about what I might do.

First, they don't have a registered trademark. That's why they used the wording "common law." Here's the thing. Common law trademarks are geographical in nature. This means if I open a business here in Vegas called "Pooper Picker Upers" and 3 years down the road you open the same named business in your area, the common law trademark does not apply to you.

However, here's the catch. We are talking about business on the Internet. Does that mean they own the whole Internet? If your business is offering the same service as theirs, there's cause for some concern. Also your name is not the same as theirs.

Since this is your business, you might want to think about telling them that you are not in violation of any rights. Let them take you to court if they want to go that route. They have no federally registered trademark. Their name (H2) is a generic term and the lowest of the trademark groups. In fact, there are about 100 "H2" trademarks out there that I saw.

Next, they are going to have to prove that customers would confuse you two. They will have to show that your business is strikingly similar to theirs. I don't know your business so only you can answer these questions.

If switching names is easy, that could be a route as well. Only you can answer how much stomach you have for legal issues (and cash in the bank).

 

Thanks marketjunction. That is very similar to my take on it. Wondered if others have had similar dealings with either the same company or others? Thanks for your input. It might get interesting!

 

In 2000, I fought a well-funded ($30 Million +) startup company who wanted my domain. I had the .net version of the domain and they had the .com. At the time when I bought my domain, the .com was for sale and was just a page with ads on it, but the guy wanted too much money for it. So I simply registered the .net and started my business.

About 6 mos. later, this company buys the .com and decides to sue me for using "their" trademark name. Mind you, I had "first use in commerce" since I had been using the domain and making $$ for 6 months before them AND I had filed for a trademark before they did. So of course when their scumbag, sub-human lawyers started to threaten me, I told them to f*#ck off.

I ended up fighting with them for a whole year. In the meantime, I had to shut down the site. They just felt they could bully me because they had money. In the end, they settled and agreed to buy my site / domain for $50K.

If I had to do it again, I wouldn't. It was so stressful, it no doubt took years off of my life.

 

Thanks tpn87 for the info. Doesn't seem like there are any easy answers...

 

Hello friend,
How is going so far?
You may contact these companies and find out.

Best of Luck anyway.

 

That link was very informative! Showed the following results for active URLs with H2 within:

15,109 results found in 0.000792 seconds.​

Thanks!

 

Nice to hear!
If you need more help, ask here.

BTW, you may CALL yourself NCO!
Anyway, good luck!!!

 

Bingo and right on target. I'd laugh at any common law claim and tell them you're no sucker. Common law is local in nature and it makes you wonder why they don't have a federal trademark. I found no registration for any mark that includes H2 and SEO in them, just a basic run so don't quote me. But here is the real laugher - to even claim that you own everything related to the term "H2" is not only completely false but virtually impossible. marketjunction is right in saying that there are about 100 registrants for this term in varying ways.

My guess - these guys are trying to scare you into handing over your domain. You may want to file a federal trademark at uspto.gov and ignore them. I'm guessing they like your business.

Giving you an inside tip, the practice of sending out legal scare letters from big firms to intimidate the little guy is an old, disgraceful practice. tpn87 encountered a process called "reverse domain name hijacking" where a second comer enters the market and then tries suing you for the domain you held and used prior to their use!

Well, now you know better. Keep us informed as to how this turns out.