deckherr

My parents have owned their own business for the last 15 years in PA. We’ve filed within the last few months, but have not heard anything back about trademarking the name of our business, something we should’ve done sooner but didn’t. It’s still awaiting examination.

We received word of a company opening in January 2020 with a similar name to ours (they use the first two words in our company name, and not the 3rd). We found out from a customer of ours that relocated to GA, thinking that we opened a store there and was disappointed in product. This person’s website address is the same as ours, but with a hyphen.

Would we have grounds to send a C&D even if we haven’t received approval for our trademark yet?

We believe that this person has to know that we exist due to the website address situation. She also doesn’t seem to have filed a trademark application which may be in our favor?

Edit to add: both our company and the company in GA sell the same type of confectionary goods.

Oooh thank you! I’ll forward your information to them— not sure if they’ll take up the offer to talk or not, but this is really good to know.

I’m just concerned that the longer we wait to send a C&D, the more likely we are to run into confused customers who don’t get the product they’re expecting if they accidentally order from one of us, thinking that they’re the other. Plus with the reports that her product is not up to par with ours, I’d like to really see us avoiding the confusion. So glad to know that we can send a C&D without having to wait. I’ll have to really put pressure on my parents to get this dealt with.

It also bugs me that the owner claims on her website that she’s the “creator of the xx brand”.... but that’s a personal gripe LOL.

We already do have an attorney working on this, however they keep pushing off sending the C&D and we’re unsure as to why they keep pushing it off with no real explanation (per my parents). It makes me wonder as to if there’s something barring the sending but as I’m not the person in direct contact with the attorney it’s not something that I can ask them personally. I’ve told my parents to ask about the reason why but they don’t see an issue.

There are times where I regret distancing myself from certain aspects of the business, but at the same time it’s been good for my mental health. But I wish I had more of a hand in this to make sure my parents aren’t just being too trusting of an attorney that doesn’t see a reason to prioritize this if this is something that should be happening ASAP.

Yep! In our case, it’s so easy for someone to get confused about this.

It’s like this (with obvious name censoring)... we go as Comfy Couch Creations and the other business is Comfy Couch. We’d be comfycouch .com. They’re comfy-couch .com. We both sell custom couches. One business has a higher quality of product and keeps a higher standard of stitch work. The other doesn’t.

It’s awful.

Edit to add: We did file trademarks for both the 3 word name and the 2 word “short” name that people commonly refer to us as and are known as.