How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
rudebaguette.com
rudebaguette.com
Moz should quit fvcking around with lawyers and filings and trademarks and whatever legal bullshit and just focus on innovating and being better at what they do.
> I understand why you're upset. This is not the kind of thing you want to worry about. You want to be building product and getting customers. Not disagreeing about trademark law. I'm very sorry that we're in this situation.
Isn't it ironic?
I can easily imagine how someone, not familiar with either company, might hear of Moz and, later, mistakenly believe that the company they heard about was Doz (or vice versa).
Don't forget, trademark law is such that you have to protect your trademark or you lose it. If there's any risk at all of infringement, you have to go after it. So although the case that Moz and Doz are similar isn't particularly strong, it seems close enough that I'm not surprised Moz is taking this action.
Only in that they both end with "oz" and sound nothing alike, don't share any common meaning, and have no other obvious connection. Personally, I don't see how anybody could ever confuse those two words.
Don't forget, trademark law is such that you have to protect your trademark or you lose it. If there's any risk at all of infringement, you have to go after it.
"any" risk? OK, great, there is a slight, however improbable, risk that somebody could confuse "Fogbeam" and "Moz". After all, we both do something related to computers and both words do contain an "o". So maybe Moz should attack us next?
Right, because everybody has perfect memory of everything they've heard in the past. No wait, it's actually quite the opposite. People have crappy memory, especially for things they're not already familiar with. Neither word has any meaning to an English speaker, but they sounds very similar. I can easily imagine how someone might get confused.
If someone else launched a company "Fogdeam", which sold similar software to yours, surely you'd go after them.
I don't know for sure that we would. But I'd argue that, being a longer word, you get more confusion with the one character change, since any one character changes a smaller percentage of the overall word.
The position of the character definitely matters to. For example, in your "fogdeam" case, I'd say it's iffy. But if somebody launched Dogbeam, I doubt the thought of going after them would even enter my mind. This is all, of course, assuming that they didn't also use a similar logo and similar messaging, etc.
Maybe the "Moz" / "Doz" one is a little bit more of a grey area than I see it, I don't know... I'm biased towards a certain mindset here.
While SeoMoz was promoting Marketing Analytics on this domain name there was nothing about moving all of their services to it. It seems to me that Doz has a reasonable chance (25% maybe) against the giant Moz. I would fight it! There is no way the DOZ guy could predict a domain name shift for Seomoz.com. I visit Woz.com occasionally to see what Woz is up to. I rarely search DMoz.com anymore. I would fight the Moz trademark if there is one... it is too common.
Is moz a person (Woz), a Browser?, a Metal Laminates and Architectural Products company, do they sell MOZ Luxury Wheels?, a songwriter? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Moz, finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MOZ.TO, do they sell sweaters? viva-moz.com, is it a cafe? moz-cafe, another person Middelton-Moz Institute?, does it have to do with orphans? projectmoz.com. That is just 2 pages on Google.
1. Capseo bought DOZ.com back in April 2011 and Capseo has been selling Online Marketing since September 2009. So it was just a matter of time that we launch DOZ.com.
2. We didn’t fill in December 2012 as you said, but March 12, 2012. (cf. USPTO)
3. DOZ is not an inbound marketing software
Mozilla uses "moz": -moz-box-sizing, -moz-zoom-in, -moz-appearance
Would this be ok too? IE, IE Analytics
On the other hand, it could be trademark law that's screwed up, because I understand that there may be dilution at stake if they don't defend their trademark.
I don't buy it. Give me an example of a company that lost trademark protection because they merely allowed another company with a similar name to exist and I'll eat my hat.
> because they merely allowed another company with a similar name to exist
reason for genericization:
> lost legal protection as trademarks by becoming the common name of the relevant product or service
So, MartinCron's claim is perhaps not invalidated by the list, since those names have the additional property of having become popular, but how does that technicality translate to whether or not SEOMoz needed to take action? Is the idea that it is OK for SEOMoz to do nothing under the assumption that Doz will never become popular?
By the way, I'm in no way siding with SEOMoz here -- I don't think it's clear that they deserved to get that mark (with the Mozilla confusion) in the first place, or that Doz is confusingly similar, but if they feel it is confusingly similar I don't see how you can argue that they can sit back and do nothing without having a risk of losing the mark.
Edit: Or, is your point perhaps that "Doz" and "Moz" are different words, so even popularization of "Doz" would not cause the "Moz" mark to be diluted?
No, that's not how marks become genericized. Marks become genericized when the consumer's mind uses the mark as a word for the category rather than as a specific product/line/company. Defending your trademark in court doesn't actually help against genericization, there's no step 1 then step 2 there's only step 2. Step 1 is irrelevant.
> Is the idea that it is OK for SEOMoz to do nothing under the assumption that Doz will never become popular?
If "doz" became genericized, Doz would lose its mark, not moz.
Wouldn't that be facilitated by consumers seeing other companies/products in the category using the same/similar name (hence my (1))? Admittedly, consumers may spontaneously expand the meaning of a word (e.g. "google" as a verb for "to search") without a competitor having encroached upon it. If Microsoft ran "Use Bing to google what you are looking for" ads and Google didn't protest, would a court really give that no weight (as an admission that Google had accepted it being generic) if Google brought a trademark case against some other party in the future?
Of course, Doz and Moz are different words, and that may be a critical point.
Maybe, but I don't know of any occurrence of that.
> Admittedly, consumers may spontaneously expand the meaning of a word (e.g. "google" as a verb for "to search")
As far as I know, that's what happened every single time so far.
> If Microsoft ran "Use Bing to google what you are looking for" ads and Google didn't protest, would a court really give that no weight (as an admission that Google had accepted it being generic) if Google brought a trademark case against some other party in the future?
No but that's a very different case, that'd be Microsoft very specifically using it as a genericized mark which is a very different case than trademark dilution or confusion or whatever moz argues they're suffering from.
(and Google could actually do that to themselves by talking about googling stuff ("Escalator" was originally a mark of Otis, but the way Otis used them in their ads e.g. explaining that they offered "the latest in elevator and escalator design" made the trademark office conclude that they used it generically and scrap the mark))
I'm even more likely to mistake a Lincoln for a Lexus than a Ferrari for a Ford, but somehow we managed.
From the horse's mouth (Mixergy interview):
"Andrew: What does SEOmoz mean?
Rand: When we started up, we were looking for a name that was short. That had the word SEO in there so that people would know what the blog was about. And, I was a big fan of the Mozilla Foundation, with DMoz and ChefMoz. What was the other ones that they were doing at the time? There was, like, MapMoz, there was a bunch of them at the time that were coming out. That were based around this open source, weird transparent.
[...]
So, that was SEOmoz, was taking SEO and combining it with the moz ethos. There you go."
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/M...
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MozActivity
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.mo...
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/window.requ...
The unfortunate situation is that due to small size of Doz, the cost of litigation will be prohibitive for Doz otherwise SEOMoz vs SEODoz will be a good point in litigation.
What disappoints me most is a companies that as a startup expect to be treated nicely by larger ones, start to behave similar to larger one when they become large themselves.
It's the same with Mojang's "Scrolls" vs Bethesda's "Elder Scrolls". It's silly, but because they're both in the video game category, it was a problem. If someone sold a product named "Scrolls" that was a gummy candy that looked like a scroll, it would probably be fine.
The law is unfortunate either way.
(the "moz" in DMOZ comes from mozilla through its original domain: Directory.MOZilla.org)
> So, I did what I would want someone to do for me. In January, I called him to give him a personal heads up that we had a problem, that the brand felt too close for us. I told him we had a registered intent-to-use, and that we were planning on launching soon, just like him. I asked him to use a different brand for his future product or that we would have to cancel his mark. He explained to me that his product is different enough from ours that there wouldn’t be confusion. I urged him to talk to his lawyer and get independent advice before he launched his product.
If someone were to get a notice saying, "Hey, we're going to drop a bomb on you in 3 months. You might want to leave." and continues to live there stubbornly, then complains a bomb got dropped on them, whose fault is it? Clearly it doesn't mean you didn't get a bomb dropped on you, but it kind of nullifies your right to complain about it.
The fault of the guy who dropped the bomb?
> it kind of nullifies your right to complain about it.
No? If you believe the "bomb" is bullshit bullying and there is no cause for you to leave, why would you leave?
I decide, say in January, that I want to change my company name from "Foobaz" to "Baz". Over the next 6 months, I go out to a bunch of startups named "Caz", "Faz", and "Jaz", and say "Hey so you might want to change your name because I'm going to change my company's name to Baz and I'm totally going to drop a legal hammer on you if you don't because I can afford it and you can't". After those 6 months are up, I change my name, and then flip around and start suing because they "didn't take my warning".
The logic here is questionable at best.
> When Anji reached out to us initially, they were CapSEO. At the time, I had no idea Doz existed, or that CapSEO was rebranding. As Anji and I talked, the discussion was around the functionality of CapSEO, which I saw as complementary. Later the discussion moved to their plans to rebrand to Doz, with a fuller focus on inbound marketing services (and software). This too is complementary, but not with the brand of Doz, as Sarah alluded to. There's obvious confusion and brand dilution of Moz that can come as a result, and it's our duty to protect our trademark.
I think it's important to have this context. It feel into our lap with no other option than the action we took, we didn't seek this out. We've taken every step to be transparent into why, and hope, still, that we can resolve this in a civilized manner. I've spent the past 8 years of my life doing startups, the last thing we want to do is derail a startup from their mission.
Are you really supporting the idea that potential customers of Moz, who go out in search of Moz and stumble on Doz, would confuse the two? Sure, they share two out of three letters, but they don't sound the same (no risk of a misspelling leading to Doz) or look the same.
It doesn't appear at all the that Doz is trying to conflate their brand to cause confusion or imply a relationship.
My guess is a company like Doz doesn't have the resources to fight, but they should. I can't imagine a court agreeing that even a "moron in a hurry" would confuse the two.
With a Hamming distance of one between the names, why wouldn't this be plausible?
I just can't see a scenario in which a person is told about Moz, seeks them out, stumbles upon Doz, and thinks they found what they were looking for. The services may be complementary and even overlap on occasion, but even to a user in a hurry it should be painfully obvious they are not the same thing.
I don't think hamming distance provides a solid legal footing for arguing conflation of trademarks. Their phonetic difference is pretty large. The legal standard is generally based on an idiot in a hurry and I think the differences are large enough than even the biggest moron with no patience will know they are different.
That said, come on - moz.com (which you JUST changed to) and doz.com? I think you had other options than the "we're going to cancel your trademark" route.
I just can't agree with this assertion. There is not a legitimate fear that you're going to lose trademark protection just because someone is using a similar (but obviously different) name. This isn't the same thing as Xerox or Kleenex turning into a general noun, this is just shameful bullying.
By not canceling doz's trademark you would be prevented from going after a hypothetical Mozz, who attempts to pass themselves off as moz by using similar branding and product offerings?
You and I, and your lawyer, all know that is complete fantasy. Yes, not going after doz may prevent you from going after similar companies who aren't really infringing your mark anyways... but you would still be fully able to litigate against companies trying to confuse your customers.
Surely if this is as dangerous as people are insisting, there must be all sorts of instructive example cases. It's not like rational people would get into a fearful panic about something overblown.
I would expand on this further, but I'm already late to my Friday afternoon satanic ritual murder party. It's my turn to bring the Judas Priest tapes.
You should ask them what are the actual risks, and how likely they are to materialize, so that you can make an informed decision. Your lawyers' responsibility isn't to your company's total well-being, but its legal well being. They warn you of legal dangers, but do not consider the cost of protecting you from them -- costs like bad PR. That's why you should tell your lawyers: thank you for warning me, but now I need you to try and help me make a global risk-assessment, one that takes into account all sorts of fallout.
We may not like current IP laws in the US, but they are the current IP laws in the US.
I agree with your reasoning.
What a strange thing to lie about. Btw, how long after Capseo's purchase of doz.com did SEOmoz file the intent-to-use on MOZ? It's more of a moral question than a legal one.
I'm not that familiar with the specifics of trademark law, so I don't know what the legally appropriate outcome is. But after seeing some of the comments from SEOMoz employees, I would be interested in reading a full response post explaining their side of the story.
I'm not sure if Rand was one of those SEO people playing that game, but it's ironic that "moz" came from an open directory and is now fighting about trademarks.
What's next? Patent trolling? ;)
EDIT tl;DR based off the [moz] that was so popular years ago that stood for openness and transparency. DMOZ and others are included in this history.
Uh?
> We're building off the history of organizations like DMOZ, Mozilla, Chefmoz, etc
http://moz.com/about/tagfee#generous http://moz.com/about/tagfee#empathetic
Maybe it should be TAGFEEH +Hypocritical.
fog - dog. No.
bet - get. No.
top - pop. No.
foo - moo. No.
It's easy to say "oh, they're only one letter different" but when you're talking three letter words, that one letter carries a lot of weight, IMO.
In fact, I'd argue that something like the "macrosoft" / "microsoft" example would be a better example of something that could legitimately be confusing (albeit still a stretch) than "moz" / "doz".
My name's Ben, I've very often thought someone said Ben when they actually said something else. I don't get mad at them for saying something that sounded like "Ben". If my name was Prometheus I would have people say similar things much less often.
Seomoz certainly could have chosen a more complex name.
I don't believe you, and you haven't provided anything to back up your statement.
Actually some of the ?oz.com sites are pretty bizarre.
I had a quick look at Doz and although its different there is some crossover which makes the product sound and look as good as it does.
Full disclosure: I'm Jen's friend.
This statement lacks arguments supporting it.
DOZ is "Search and Social Media Marketing done by professionals" according to their website, and Moz is "Software and Community for better Marketing". IANAL but I feel like there could indeed be confusion between the two, especially considering DOZ was CapSEO before, and Moz, SEOMoz.
So now it's a matter of trademarks and specifically timeline on who was first, but the details are not provided in the post.
I'm disgusted by this behavior. What happened to innovate?
Someone somewhere in this thread asked for an example of a similar situation. I can personally speak to that. Long ago and far away I worked at a software company and we developed a web based traffic analytics platform - pre webtrends even! Anyhoo we didn't register the mark for it (young!) and we were contacted by someone who was trying to get their mark (same exact product name, similar functionality - a web traffic analytics program) registered. They told us we had to stop using the name, blah blah blah because they owned the trademark. Well, they actually didn't - yet. And we had first use in commerce. So we opposed their application, it was denied, we filed ours (which they of course opposed), but we ultimately owned the mark. Solely because of first use in commerce.
I don't know every detail of this unfortunate scenario, but from what I've read here and on the blog post, it's not at all a slam dunk for Moz. And it's unfortunate that they, and the Doz folks are having to spend time, energy and money on this.
If moz wants the doz.com domain, they should pay for it. Why should doz just give it up over such a weak claim?
Just do what Opera did and take back your lawyer letter. Don't make this mess any bigger and you'd do fine. If you want, you can prove that Moz can do SEO better than Doz.
SEO is irrelevant these days though. Product is what matters
now you have two choices, double down or retract and learn from the mistake
How different would this thread be if it were Google, Microsoft, Salesforce or some billion dollar company that decided to launch an Internet marketing brand at Doz.com?
SEOMoz's openness has helped dozens of startups with posts like this: http://moz.com/blog/mozs-18-million-venture-financing-our-st... You can't get much nicer than that to your competitors short of giving them money. IIRC the deck included there, from over a year ago, hints at future use of the Moz brand too.
Just because they're bigger than the company behind Doz.com doesn't mean we have to jump to the conclusion that they are the bad guys here. Their lawyer even went to the unnecessary trouble of offering to help doz.com which might have meant financially given a more dignified response.
Those comments don't make seomoz look any better. Look at the date when doz.com was purchased.
edited because I was a jerk
Next, doesn't matter when the domain was purchased. What matters is the date that the trademark, or the intent to use a trademark, was filed.
No it isn't, but it belies a defensiveness and paranoia that you interpret it that way. Why not take it at face value?
And your comment is pretty neutral on the face of it, but if you read between the lines it's a defense of seomoz. That's why I wondered if you were connected to them, since you left the first comment it seemed that you may have received a google alert.
Apology accepted.
So I've been taking screengrabs - here's the latest:
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2uyrluu.jpg
TAGFEE? What a sad joke.
us customers are so dumb.
finally, i picked a side and chose to use google. this had nothing to do with the fact that google's product was BETTER. i was simply duped into it. goddammit!
Guck Off