Stolen business name?

As most people here know, I've been trading in SL as "Prim Savers" for a long time - in the low prim furniture field. Two months ago a new low prim furniture store opened up as "PrimSavers" (no space between the words). The owner claims that it's a different business name and I disagree. Anyone got any thoughts?


(I contacted live chat and he suggested I AR it, which is what I've done).

Is is against "the rules"?

According to your own statement in these forums, if it's not "against the rules", then it is OK.

Make up your mind.

From experience....I would have done it differently.

I had my store name pop up one day, when I was checking traffic.....and I went ballistic. (in my own mind) But settled down long enough to contact the person. And I was nice about it. (generally, not the case)

He was very flustered, and very apologetic.....and claims that he had no idea there was another store using the name. And I believed him. (although, first thing I would have done, is to research the name, by using all the searches, before busting it out on logos and packaging).....I just think he didn't take this step.

By being nice in the exchange.....we were able to work it out, and he renamed his store immediately, within 24 hours. Might not have been the case if I had busted out an AR, before contacting him.

It is clearly trademark infringement.

He said he didn't know abiut my place and I asked, now that he knows, will he change the name. he said no, because he doesn't agree that it's the same name.

I wasn't all lovey-dovey, but I wasn't rude either.

I don't have anything registered. Is it still an infringment?

And does joining the words together make it a different name? Imo, it doesn't, but I may be wrong.

He's pretty cute. Can I be your lovey-dovey representative?

I wasn't exactly lovey-dovey, with the other guy.....but I did highlight some reasons where it would most likely be detrimental to his business....much more than mine. Did you do that?

No. The only business that I see it being detrimental to is mine. He's benefiting from my low prim furniture reputation. He started 2 months ago and is working up. If people look for Prim Savers because they've heard of it, they could easily run into his place at my expense.

What rule does this person not comply with?
Are you asking / demanding that he does more than comply with the rules.

On what basis are you submitting the AR?

Yes, your business name is a trademark, just not a registered trademark. A registered trademark would give you additional rights in collecting damages if you went to court over it, at least that's my understanding of US trademark law.

Trademark law I suspect.

Not my area of expertise...

But I believe this comes under that, or a related area.

Did you ever file a business license or publish one of those fictitious business things in a paper or journal?

EDIT: reading more, I see you did not.

You still should have trademark potential and could use a DCMA to open up enough info for litigation.

This makes me wonder if there is a journal anywhere covering SL that could have a section set aside for publication of fictitious business name announcements.

Only if he had or has copyrighted the name. If not you should.. because he just might then you my friend will have to change your store name.

I've taken the issue of a fictitious business name announcement to the answers blog:

https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/7288

As its an odd issue that seems to get ignored all the time in SL.

Copyright is not related to trademark.

Further, copyrights are automatic and assumed. Registering a copyright does not create it - it just makes it easier to prove in court that you are the holder of it.

Trademarks I believe are automatic, but must be defended to be retained. Registering of trademarks does not create them - it just makes it easier to prove in court that you are the holder of them. You can create one by simply declaring it so.

By contrast a copyright is not lost, even if you fail to protect it when it is infringed.

So... I declare a 'Catbox Curios' a trademark of mine within Second Life.

I had the same thing happen. As most people know, I have the sim The Botanical Gardens and someone else was allowed to open up a sim called Botanical Gardens. They are no longer there and I've always wondered if the business (trees, of course) failed or if LL told them they couldn't do such a flagrant infringement and made them change their name.

I guess we will see when LL answers Phil. I don't recall there being any specific rules.

Well, there are a number of reasons why this would have a negative impact on the new person, and add to the hurdles of starting a new business, particularly in a competitive category as this one.....but probably too late to point those out to someone in a B2B friendly manner, now.

But I do recall that my Karma, baby, discussion was highly effective. You kind of have to have that Karma concept going on at your core, to make an effective presentation. Requires some Passion. You got that going on?

Using "Phil logic": you didn't register your trademark which is traditionally the way to let other people know that you feel strongly about them using your name or derivatives of it. By "Phil logic precedent" since you made no indication that you would mind someone using your name it was not possible for other people to know how you felt about it and therefor they didn't do anything wrong.

Additional "Phil semantic scrutiny" suggests that the names are clearly not the same but are in fact very different because one has a space and the other one doesn't and searching "Prim Savers" doesn't yield "PrimSavers" or vice versa so people aren't going to get confused when search accurately directs them to the store they're looking for.

That was cheap, but fun .

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Contact the UK trademark office and go through the steps to register your trademark *internationally* at which point LL will side with the legitimate trademark owner.

And you're welcome for letting you know btw.

That's what Phil is trying to ascertain, I thought.. whether it's against the rules or not. If it is, he can do something about it; if it isn't, arguing about the other chap is being "ethical" or not is possibly an interesting intellectual exercise (to some people) but not a deal of use to anyone.

I *believe* it is not against the rules because there are no rules that cover the situation that I've ever seen. I could open Prim Savers Outlet and be perfectly legal, although ethically questionable (which does become rather humorous given Phil's previous stance on certain issues.)

In principle, I think this other trader is full of it if he thinks the lack of a word space makes his 'trade name' original and special. Whether he decided on the name in full knowledge of Phil's pre-existent business or not is irrelevant: he knows now.

Mickey's point is good. Surely he ought to spare a second thought for the implications of confusing his product line with that of an established SL tradename? I understand this could work both ways with damaging repercussions to 'Prim Savers' but the guy is taking an awful chance going up against Robo-Phil and The Traffic Hordes.

And never mind RL legalities: the Lindens really ought to step in, take responsibility and eliminate such dog-eat-dog strategies from their vaunted micro-economy. It would be relatively easy to sort the issue out with a curt email to the offender followed by an IP ban if he does not take due notice.

I expect they would do as much for any persistent lol-box griefer so what's the difference?

Phil has a case if he wishes to pursue it.

If you do trade with a mark, you are using a trade mark. No matter what anyone else thinks. It's a fact.

TM, or essentially declaration of a trademark, is a way to let people know of your intent. Usually this is plenty in terms of small business, and helps others steer clear. Few people engaging in long term, good faith businesses really want to sit on someone else's mark ~ eventually the fact that two businesses have the same mark, hurts both.

(R) is a registered version of TM, which makes it a lot more findable for everybody.


Now, it's going to be a lot HARDER for Phil because he's never put TM on there, and hasn't registered it ~ now would be the time, and yes, he should send documented protests to anyone else on what he regards as his trademark.

Why?

Because if he doesn't, it can fall to public domain. Didn't defend? Well guess what, now anyone can lawfully use the mark. It's like 'zipper' then.

According to Phil's own strongly stated attitude to business ethics, the difference is that the lol-box griefing is "against the rules".

Phil holds that the blatant keyword-stuffing and any other search-gaming techniques he uses - although explicitly highlighted as bad behaviour by LL - are not "against the rules".

Despite being unaware of what rules might be applicable, he has filed an AR, presumably on the basis that someone is behaving unethically.

He may have a case under California trademark law, if not federal or international laws. Yes, there are actually laws about it, it's not new. Just because Phil doesn't know the state of the law right now doesn't mean that it is undetermined and that he is treading in a gray area where there is no regulation. It is just that neither he nor anyone else here knows what the precise answer is.

I believe the other trader is in the wrong, regardless of Phil's personal ethics and however selective his methods of justifying them might be.