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Dear Instagram

blog.bolt.co

61–70 of 132 posts

Re: Dear Instagram

#61
post #21

Clickable link to the Bolt homepage: https://bolt.co/ I always find it annoying when the blog company logo doesn't bring you back to the company's homepage.

Me too, so what is best practice?

I put together a simple layout for my company's blog and made this link very explicit specific, see: http://blog.vidoyen.com

Is that more in line with a blog reader would generally expect? I'm genuinely curious, because I've seen variants of this comment time and time again on HN.

Re: Dear Instagram

#62

Dear Bolt.co, I truly wish you luck in your fight against Instagram. Name stealing is a rough game. I know because I have been traveling on Bolt buses for 8 years now ( http://www.boltbus.com/ ). I know there is some confusion because you have basically the same symbol. Maybe there aren't too many ways to vary a lightning bolt shooting through an "O" in the word "Bolt" but I welcome you (and Instagram to try). Sincer…

and here's the cms called http://bolt.cm

I'm curious who got this name earlier.

Re: Dear Instagram

#63
post #47
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure you can get trademark protection for short, common words, as long as they are not descriptive or common for the protected areas. You can name your car bar and your bar car, but not your bar bar and your car car.

I think that part of the issue is that in a competitive marketplace, the risk of a third party either a) objecting to your short common word upon its creation, or b) coming along at a later date and selecting the same or similar mark are much higher than if you create a compound name or a fanciful/unusual combination of words as your mark. Simply put, if you create a fanciful term you will be able to operate with gre…

> If I was Instagram I would probably offer a small sum to Bolt.co to change their name on the basis that I could offer a sum now or know I could have a deep reserve of budget for legal fees to argue that Bolt.co has not developed sufficient goodwill/reputation to be entitled to prevent Instagram's usage of 'Bolt'.

What? That is not at all how trademark works.

If Instagram wanted, it might have a shot at a protracted lawsuit, attempting to make it not worth Bolt's time to defend the trademark [0].

If that were to happen, though, I would hope that the suit would be dismissed with prejudice because in my non-legal opinion, any reasonable person would agree that Instagram is directly infringing Bolt's trademark in an area of business that is too similar for the average consumer to be able to differentiate.

[0] either by bankrupting them if they decide to defend it, or if Bolt can successfully mount a defense, it would require a large time investment by key employees like all the C-level executives, meanwhile Instagram (having more resources by far) is not impeded in its business nearly as much.

Re: Dear Instagram

#65

Dear Bolt.co, I truly wish you luck in your fight against Instagram. Name stealing is a rough game. I know because I have been traveling on Bolt buses for 8 years now ( http://www.boltbus.com/ ). I know there is some confusion because you have basically the same symbol. Maybe there aren't too many ways to vary a lightning bolt shooting through an "O" in the word "Bolt" but I welcome you (and Instagram to try). Sincer…

I think this is different. Instagram's Bolt & Bolt are both Apps. Which will be searched for in the same apps stores.

Bolt Bus will definitely not be confused with the Bolt App.

Re: Dear Instagram

#66

Dear Bolt.co, I truly wish you luck in your fight against Instagram. Name stealing is a rough game. I know because I have been traveling on Bolt buses for 8 years now ( http://www.boltbus.com/ ). I know there is some confusion because you have basically the same symbol. Maybe there aren't too many ways to vary a lightning bolt shooting through an "O" in the word "Bolt" but I welcome you (and Instagram to try). Sincer…

I think you miss the problem here. There is very little confusion between BoltBus and Bolt.co in the sense that they are in completely different industries and the likelihood of confusion is low.

As bolt.co is claiming, there are many people who appear to be confused between instagram's offering and the company's product (they are arguably in the same space and possibly competitors).

Re: Dear Instagram

#67
I wish them luck, although using the name of a common machine part as a brand is kind of asking for collisions. I'm also not sure it's wise to base one of your first steps in a potential legal battle on an open letter based on leaked information...

Re: Dear Instagram

#68
post #51

downloaded Bolt as the only way i can support from afar..

I hope the team makes the best of a bad situation and uses the attention (and possibly press) to convert supporters, like yourself, into users.

Re: Dear Instagram

#69

Dear Bolt.co, I truly wish you luck in your fight against Instagram. Name stealing is a rough game. I know because I have been traveling on Bolt buses for 8 years now ( http://www.boltbus.com/ ). I know there is some confusion because you have basically the same symbol. Maybe there aren't too many ways to vary a lightning bolt shooting through an "O" in the word "Bolt" but I welcome you (and Instagram to try). Sincer…

and here's the cms called http://bolt.cm I'm curious who got this name earlier.

And the media sharing forum: http://bolt.cd/

Re: Dear Instagram

#70
post #4

It's hard to have much sympathy when your app already has an identical name (and a very similar logo) to a mobile web browser launched four years earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_(web_browser)

Idunno, the web browser has been discontinued for 3 years now. It also seems that bolt.co and Instagram's Bolt are much more similar to each other (apps dedicated to person→person communication) than Bolt the browser is to either of them, so the risk of confusion is much smaller.

It also seems that bolt.co and Instagram's Bolt are much more similar to each other (apps dedicated to person→person communication)

I disagree. A web browser is used for person to person communication too. All three are used for very, very different forms of it, though.

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