Neew help for website copyright legal issue!

website logo, layout violation...

[MikeLong]

Hi webmasterwolrd friends,
I'm a webmaster and I just received a threatening email from another website(competitor), claiming my site's logo and layout violate their copyright and pending trademark.
They said our logo uses the same color patten as theirs and some of our site's layout is similar to theirs.

Although I don't think my site has violated their copyright, I really need help from experts here and I will sticky my URLs if you are willing to help me take a look at it to see if I did violate their copyright or trademark.

Look forward to your help!

Mike

[rogerd]

Hi, Mike, welcome to WebmasterWorld!

This is the kind of thing you should seek professional advice for. Someone threatening legal action could be serious, and the judge won't buy, "but the guy in the discussion forum said..." ;)

If you arrived at your site completely independently, it's unlikely you are violating the other guy's copyrights. If you copied his site and changed a few things, that's a different story.

Here's some info on what can be copyrighted:
[lcweb.loc.gov...]
Good luck with this!

[walkman]

how big is the site threatening action? Was it a laywer's letter or a "homemade one". He might just be trying to scare you into submission. Legal battles cost a fortune and one over layout is usually not worth it.

I got one a while back too. This idiot lawyer tried to tell me that he owned the trademark on my domain...very generic one, when he owned a similar trademark (probably not valid if challenged). Never heard form him again after my response.

[mgream]

It sounds as though you are not confident enough with copyright and trademark law to answer this question for yourself. You should examine the appropriate resources to help you, and if you are still unable to come to a conclusion, then you need to consult a professional.

Note that in the case of trademark infringement, some jurisdictions provide for protection against "threats actions" (i.e. where the owner of a trademark unjustifiably threatens someone and it turns out that the threat was not founded): this means that if the trademark owner is not stupid, they won't have threatened you in the first place if they didn't think that they had a good case or they didn't think they were large enough to muscle you -- suggesting that some seriousness does need to be paid to their claims.

Write a nice letter of reply with a "thank you for informing me" ... "I am looking into the issue" ... "will respond to as soon as I have taken legal advice" ... and if you need to have better clarification on specifically what is copied, ask for it. Once you do have this information, obtain printouts of these correspondence and the allegeded infringing material including trademarks for comparison, consult a lawyer and ask for an opinion on whether there is valid claim. That should be your first step.

(disclaimer: not giving advice, just general information ...)

[MikeLong]

Hi mgream, walkman
I sent a sticky mail to you and your help is really appreciated.

Thanks for your time!

Mike

[DrDoc]

pending trademark

...which might just mean they are scared they may not be able to actually get theirs trademarked ;)

[gussie]

A firm I work for had a similar problem. We changed our logo when we changed our name a few years back. We researched the name, determined no conflict, and designed a snazzy new logo with a bright blue color in a circle. It turns out one of our competitors also uses a bright blue logo in a circle (although other elements are different) and threatened to take us to court. It was quite a serious matter, and we ended up changing the color on our logo (at a large printing cost) and agreeing that we would never use blue again on our logo. It was spelled out by Pantone number exactly which colors of blue we had to avoid. The whole thing was time consuming, expensive and scary. I hope your matter resolves itself quickly and simply.