How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice. • Hacker News Board

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#11

Post by dohertyjf » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:11 PM UTC

benatkin wrote: post #7

dohertyjf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Global Associate for Moz and I work for Distilled, who took over Moz's consulting business when they went fulltime in SAAS. 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.

I never said that you denied it. I said that you failed to disclose it in your comment. My earlier comment was just a friendly reminder but since you went uppercase on me I'll add that you should know better because of the industry you work in.

You are correct, I did. Thanks for the reminder, though a statement like "Why not disclose that?" is, most of the time, taken as accusatory and not friendly. But this is not the place for such debates. Let's talk about copyright legalities :-)

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#12

Post by coldcode » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:11 PM UTC

Check out all the variations on http://?oz.com. Will you sue all of them for confusion? 3 letter word trademark arguments are pretty lame.

Actually some of the ?oz.com sites are pretty bizarre.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#13

Post by akg_67 » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:11 PM UTC

Very interesting. If Moz and (D)oz are close, how about Moz and Moz(illa)? Lets start out as SEOmoz and when we become big enough, we can change our name to Moz so that Mozilla doesn't come after us when we are small. As SEOMoz has changed the name to Moz, may be Doz want to rename to SEODoz. What a racket!

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#14

Post by benatkin » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:13 PM UTC

I don't think there's a conflict at all, and I hope the trademark office and/or the courts get it right. If you want to protect against indirect competitors rhyming with you, please pick a name that's longer than one syllable.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#15

Post by Kiro » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:13 PM UTC

I will cancel our SEOmoz account tomorrow.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#16

Post by mindcrime » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:15 PM UTC

Wow, Moz does not come out looking good here. Doz and Moz are not the same word, don't mean the same thing (I'm not even sure either word actually means anything) and are only similar in the most superficial possible way.

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.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#17

Post by rooshdi » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:16 PM UTC

andrewdumont wrote: post #8

Pulling over my comments on the matter from Inbound.org. Anji mentions a partnership in his post that I wanted to put come context behind. > 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…

Mozilla could give the same obvious confusion and brand dilution argument you're making for Moz, but they're not.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#18

Post by MartinCron » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:16 PM UTC

There's a particular irony that the Moz folks think that the Doz name is too similar to be allowed, when they're using an abbreviation for Mozilla that has been around for years and years.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#19

Post by examancer » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:17 PM UTC

andrewdumont wrote: post #8

Pulling over my comments on the matter from Inbound.org. Anji mentions a partnership in his post that I wanted to put come context behind. > 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…

I love the outpouring of empathy in the language of responses from Moz. Too bad at the end the end you still decide to stick to your guns and assert there is "obvious confusion and brand dilution". Really?!?

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#20

Post by jwdunne » Fri, May 31, 2013, 6:17 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #12

Check out all the variations on http://?oz.com . Will you sue all of them for confusion? 3 letter word trademark arguments are pretty lame. Actually some of the ?oz.com sites are pretty bizarre.

It's not just the similarity of the name at play here. It's also the industry and DOZ is very close. DOZ and MOZ sell inbound marketing software and they both seem to have a lean towards SEO (or grew from there).

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.