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Comment by mtVessel | Hacker News Reader

IANAL, but isn't it incumbent upon IKEA to issue a C&D, whether they want to or not, in order to show they are actively using their trademark?

From what I've heard, if they didn't, someone else might have a case that their trademark is open to use.

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It's incumbent on IKEA to police unauthorized use of their trademark somehow, but that doesn't have to mean that they must start by sending a nasty letter. When Jack Daniels thought their trademark was being infringed, they started by sending a nice letter simply asking the infringer to stop.

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/07/cease-and-desist-letter-of-th...

Another way to deal with unauthorized use of a trademark is to authorize it. So IKEA could have started with a letter asking IKEA Hackers suggesting a potential agreement and a nominal fee. An imperative cease and desist letter isn't required.

The Jack Daniels C&D letter should be a case study in public relations. While not universal, people really do respond quite well when faced with civility and respect.

To use the Ikea trademark when referring to Ikea brand products doesn't dilute the mark.

It's in their right to be assholes too. Most probably, they wont't because it's a bad way to do business.

> If they didn't, someone else might have a case

They could have just licensed their trademark to the website for a non-null sum of money.

Nominative use is allowed. (You can think of this as a trademark analog of "fair use" in Copyright.)

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