Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
ikeahackers.net
Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#2Given the obvious benefits TO Ikea of ikeahackers.net, it seems likely that it was an overzealous legal department move to "protect" the trademark. It's easy to forget how many people there are in a company like Ikea, and the fact that not every trademark cease-and-desist gets vetted by the people who run the company.
The thing is they should be able to protect it by simply "licensing" it to the guy who runs ikeahackers.net and charging him an "undisclosed sum" for the license (a dollar should make it legal, though IANAL).
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#3Given the obvious benefits TO Ikea of ikeahackers.net, it seems likely that it was an overzealous legal department move to "protect" the trademark. It's easy to forget how many people there are in a company like Ikea, and the fact that not every trademark cease-and-desist gets vetted by the people who run the company. The thing is they should be able to protect it by simply "licensing" it to the guy who runs ikeahack…
girl, not guy.
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#4So the cease & desist letter could've been just an over-enthousiastic legal employee?
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#5What will happen next?
They will make the "IKEA Hackers" logo look less like the official IKEA logo, and they'll put a big "not an official IKEA site" banner on each page. My guess.
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#6IANAL, but isn't it incumbent upon IKEA to issue a C&D, whether they want to or not, in order to show they are actively using their trademark?
From what I've heard, if they didn't, someone else might have a case that their trademark is open to use.
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#7What will happen next? They will make the "IKEA Hackers" logo look less like the official IKEA logo, and they'll put a big "not an official IKEA site" banner on each page. My guess.
That's my guess as well. That would have been the solution to go with from the start - putting in a simple disclaimer along the lines of "not affiliated with IKEA in any way". It's what I would have done if IkeaHackers was my site.
If I was an Ikea exec though, I'd additionally suggest a partnership with the site. Displaying Ikea ads and creating a funnel from individual articles to Ikea's order form would be a great idea to benefit both the site and Ikea financially. Not that Ikea needs it, but it's still good business sense.
However, we don't know what they'll come up with. It's a giant corporation so pretty much anything is possible and it's probably too early to get your hopes up.
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#8IANAL, but isn't it incumbent upon IKEA to issue a C&D, whether they want to or not, in order to show they are actively using their trademark? From what I've heard, if they didn't, someone else might have a case that their trademark is open to use.
It's in their right to be assholes too. Most probably, they wont't because it's a bad way to do business.
> If they didn't, someone else might have a case
They could have just licensed their trademark to the website for a non-null sum of money.
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#9Given the obvious benefits TO Ikea of ikeahackers.net, it seems likely that it was an overzealous legal department move to "protect" the trademark. It's easy to forget how many people there are in a company like Ikea, and the fact that not every trademark cease-and-desist gets vetted by the people who run the company. The thing is they should be able to protect it by simply "licensing" it to the guy who runs ikeahack…
girl, not guy.
I'm as anti-sexism as the next rational human being, but I too catch myself doing this default-to-guy thing. Any idea why it happens?
Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me
#10So the cease & desist letter could've been just an over-enthousiastic legal employee?
Not sure I would call it over-enthusiastic. If you don't protect your trademark, you lose it. It's is probably standing orders for the legal team to do that.