Hi, I know that its not legal to use a companies to trademark as a promotional trademark to compare with you own site. But it is legal for third party to do a comparsion of different sites however they like right? I was wanting to make a site that does comparsions and reviews on an specific industry. Unfortunely I have a website, I would like to review and compare along with other competitor sites. Is this legal, or would this be an trademark issue.
im not sure what you are trying to accomplish - is your website going to list things in a table such as features or services rendered by each company stated and compare it to your own? if that is the case, you are allowed to mention it to any detail. Ie: YourSite has Such and Such, Company ABC Does Not Have Such and Such. do not slander your competition and everything should be fine.
That makes sense. Thanks zebulon. I wouldn't be able to make an opinion sort of review but just listing fact is should be arite.
you can make an opinion review, just do not say things like 'Company ABC sells their client information to crack heads in the bronx.' You can say 'Company ABC is not in compliance with such and such' (only if you can prove it )
ya thats what I thought at first. But I was told that sometimes companies don't want you to use their trademark as a promotional comparsion , even its backed up with shear facts.
If a company has a trademark, you must get their permission to use it. If they have a logo you will certainly need their permission if you want to display it on your site. Infact, even if it's a company name the same applies. Chances are, they won't mind you using the name, unles you are saying something bad about them though. Less likely they will let you use their logo.
In the US there are fair-use (or nominative use) guidelines for using trademarks of others. Even when being used for fair-use, US courts prefer that only as much of the trademark that is needed be used. For example, if I am writing an article on cereal then using Cheerios is acceptable. However, if I show a box of Cheerios as well, that might not be fair-use as people would know what Cheerios are without the picture or logo. http://www.publaw.com/fairusetrade.html
Thanks for all the info guys. I think I sorta get what you mean. I'm going to use this as an example. http://www.dropship-review.com/ This site is owned by doba. Would this be considered fair use? They been using it for quite a while now. I do personally do think its a bit bias.
remember, you are entitled to your opinion on anything - it's your fundamental freedom of speech ... the only thing you need to stay away from is making claims which are not true, resulting in slander. slander is by far the hardest thing to sue for, and prove, but some identitys do win. You can be as bias as you want in your opinion, just remember what I keep typing about defamation. good luck on your site