Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

rudebaguette.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 164 posts

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#101

Post by velodrome »

mindcrime wrote: post #16

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.

What about Moz and Mozilla?

Mozilla uses "moz": -moz-box-sizing, -moz-zoom-in, -moz-appearance

Would this be ok too? IE, IE Analytics

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#102

Post by jennita »

nthj wrote: post #78
unreal37 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You work for Moz too. The whole Moz company is here defending yourselves without identifying your employer.

She did say "we're", it was pretty obvious to me that she identified with Moz

Yep, that's why I said we. :)

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#103

Post by mindcrime »

Ryan_Watson wrote: post #86
benatkin wrote: post #14

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.

In trademark law, a mark can be "Confusingly Similar." Doz differs from Moz, but it may still infringe on Moz's trademark. Because Doz has a similar spelling and operates in the same industry as Moz, it may lead a "reasonable person" to believe the trademarks are related. The court will hold that Doz infringed on Moz's trademark if a reasonable person would find the two confusingly similar.

So, let's look at other three letter words that differ in only one character and see if a reasonable person would find them to be overly similar:

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".

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#104

Post by benatkin »

Ryan_Watson wrote: post #86
benatkin wrote: post #14

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.

In trademark law, a mark can be "Confusingly Similar." Doz differs from Moz, but it may still infringe on Moz's trademark. Because Doz has a similar spelling and operates in the same industry as Moz, it may lead a "reasonable person" to believe the trademarks are related. The court will hold that Doz infringed on Moz's trademark if a reasonable person would find the two confusingly similar.

A reasonable person should see that by picking such a short of name they've forfeited their right to be nitpicky about pronunciation.

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.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#105

Post by eridius »

mindcrime wrote: post #93
eridius wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually are quite similar words, for companies which it seems are engaged in the exact same business. 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,…

They actually are quite similar words 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, g…

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.

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.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#106

Post by Ryan_Watson »

Ryan_Watson wrote: post #86
benatkin wrote: post #14

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.

In trademark law, a mark can be "Confusingly Similar." Doz differs from Moz, but it may still infringe on Moz's trademark. Because Doz has a similar spelling and operates in the same industry as Moz, it may lead a "reasonable person" to believe the trademarks are related. The court will hold that Doz infringed on Moz's trademark if a reasonable person would find the two confusingly similar.

Doz and Moz operate in the same industry and the use of Doz would most certainly trip the reasonable person standard for confusing similarity. If "Doz's" attorney had performed a 30 min trademark search with the USPTO "Doz" would have been advised to choose a different name.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#107

Post by Sujan »

djim wrote: post #99
Sujan wrote: post #25

Slightly off topic, but does it feel 'fishy' and 'unfair' to anyone else that this was published 2 days after the rebranding was announced?

i don't think this is off-topic. this was this first thing that popped into my mind as i read this article. Moz is in the wrong here, legal or not.

Huh? I meant wrong by the Doz guys doing this blog post for link bait. I think Moz has every (legal and moral) right to what they did.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#108

Post by akg_67 »

seodoz wrote: post #24
akg_67 wrote: post #13

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!

I was about to register the domain but looks like someone has been using seodoz.com for quite a while. Hilarious!

I wonder when Moz was SEOMoz, did they go after SEODoz too? I don't know much about SEO, so I don't know similar they are. But if Moz as SEOMoz didn't pursue similar action against SEODoz, I don't believe they should be doing same as Moz with Doz.

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.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#109

Post by donohoe »

xelipe wrote: post #85
mindcrime wrote: post #16

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.

Does Moz also claim a trademark for Woz? Moz and Woz are very similar, especially if you are dyslexic.

I suspect Woz does not do much SEO - so he is safe. For now.

Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.

#110

Post by JungleGymSam »

velodrome wrote: post #101
mindcrime wrote: post #16

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.

What about Moz and Mozilla? Mozilla uses "moz": -moz-box-sizing, -moz-zoom-in, -moz-appearance Would this be ok too? IE, IE Analytics

Not ever caring about SEOmoz I always thought they were an arm of Mozilla until recently. :|
Post reply on HN