An Early Retirement

I'm assuming the company in question is Blue Cross Blue Shield. This kind of sucks, but looking at their logo[0], I would have to agree that they're uncomfortably close, if they are deemed to be in similar enough markets.

The only question is whether Watsi and BCBS operate within similar enough markets for their use to be considered infringement - I'm less sure of that.

On a related note, this is why early-stage startups shouldn't get too attached to their branding, product name, and/or company name. You're better off focusing your efforts on your product itself.

And don't waste money (as an early startup) on filing for trademark protection - because US trademark law respects common law use (ie, if you used it first, you are protected, even if you didn't file for protection)[1]. Registering your trademark does nothing if someone else (with more expensive lawyers) was using it first and can demonstrate that use.

And even if they accept your registration, that doesn't mean that it will hold up. Just like patents, the USPTO leaves this up to courts to decide. You could easily register something like the Coca-Cola[2] logo and they could accept it, but that doesn't prevent Coca-Cola from litigating against you and winning. They have no great way to check for conflicts, and they err on the side of issuing the trademark (and collecting your fee) so that the courts can be the final arbiters[3].

(Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice).

[0] https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=blue%20cross%...

[1] This is the opposite of the way that patent law works.

[2] In reality, probably not Coca-Cola per se, because it's popular enough that anybody reading your application would notice it, but a trademark that's very similar to an existing logo.

[3] If you're wondering, no, they won't refund your fee if your trademark is deemed invalid.

Well played Watsi, well played. Hope it goes viral.

I assumed the same company as you. However, I fall on the other side of the analysis, that Watsi is 1. not interfering with any trademarks registered by BCBS (all BCBS registered marks, which I found in TESS, are word/design marks, which means the blue cross on its own is not protected, it is only protected when it is accompanied by the word mark); and 2. otherwise not causing any confusion in the markplace (for example who is going to donate to Watsi under the belief they were donating to BCBS, there is a test of the reasonable consumer and BCBS would have to prove actual confusion in the marketplace...good luck on that).

I am sure Watsi being who they are made an informed decision and with the advice of counsel. The sad thing is the advice was probably to the effect that while Watsi has a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on their use of the mark, BCBS has enough money to try to enforce the mark without putting a dent in their litigation budget, and Watsi's money would be better spent on Watsi's mission of helping people not in defending litigation. Nevertheless I would have felt good defending Watsi's use of the mark.

I hope they aren't planning on changing it to red. I remember in 2005, the Red Cross was going after video game companies that used a red cross on their health/medpack items in-game.

> all BCBS registered marks, which I found in TESS, are word/design marks, which means the blue cross on its own is not protected, it is only protected when it is accompanied by the word mark

As I noted in my post, though, marks don't have to be registered in order to be protected. Even if BCBS doesn't have any instances of the blue cross alone registered with the USPTO[0], that doesn't mean that BCBS couldn't still have trademark rights to it.

> while we have a reasonable likelihood of prevailing our use of the mark

I'm not convinced - there are many (seemingly) clearer-cut cases that have gone the other way. I'm not saying that this is the ideal state of trademark law, but I think that there's reasonable precedent for it.

> they have enough money to try to enforce the mark without putting a dent in their litigation budget

I agree that this is probably the dominant reason.

[0] Which I would not necessarily conclude based solely on the fact that you couldn't find it. It's not a comment on your searching skills; I've used it before, and TESS (the USPTO database search) sucks.