LOL it's about "Zen" now?
Half a decade ago they were claiming ownership of "desk".
2011 HN discussion of their tiff with freshdesk.com: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3311496
Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
21–30 of 31 posts
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#22I'm not sure if this is the case, but I remember reading somewhere than in order to keep your trademark, you have to show that you defend it (ie. bully other companies with the same name).
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#23Zendesk recently sent their customers (at least me) a survey asking about thoughts regarding changing their own name from zendesk to something else.
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#24Surely the alleged infringers just need to appear at a trial in order for Autodesk to be laughed out of court with an award of costs against them?
Shouldn't there be some sort of government action against these sorts of bullying crimes, removal of trademarks for false allegations of infringement would be a good start to rationalising business uses of IP laws.
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#25TFA "may increase the chance of confusion" between Zendesk and other assholes like Kik.
The Kik case was different. In that case, Kik was a) a word which had no other usage outside the startup that it represents it/no historical prior use, and b) the existing npm package held by another developer was an exact name match.
So you agree that Zendesk have shown themselves to be bigger assholes even than Kik?
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#26Quick question, what would be a good alternative to Zendesk? We've initially chosen it because it seemed pretty standard, but it looks designed for much larger companies. We avoid using it (!) because the UI is confusing, and it's very pricey for what it does (especially that some basic features are locked in the higher-priced tiers). This article doesn't help either.
Helpscout has been awesome and is responsive to feature and support requests.
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#27What is wrong in using the word 'zen'?
It is not like you name your child 'zen' and other people shouldn't name their child 'zen'.
I think zendesk fears that if people use the word 'zen' and they are better then them, they will lose customers. If you want your brand to remain unique, just try to be better than all others. There is nothing to fear, If you are better, people will use your product else they will use some other.
BTW there are many alternative for zendesk and which are doing better than zendesk. I believe Freshdesk(https://freshdesk.com) is doing better than zendesk. So may be that is why zendesk fears.
Also they always exchanged words with freshdesk. Even markdown has commented about that:(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11750875)
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#28Quick question, what would be a good alternative to Zendesk? We've initially chosen it because it seemed pretty standard, but it looks designed for much larger companies. We avoid using it (!) because the UI is confusing, and it's very pricey for what it does (especially that some basic features are locked in the higher-priced tiers). This article doesn't help either.
Intercom, hands down. We switched what now seems a long time ago, and the pricing is like 3x of what we paid for Zendesk, but the UX feels so much more natural and UI unobstructive that we gladly pay $600/mo for it. Plus the additional features make it a non brainer (true, it also lacks some that Zendesk has)
consider using Freshdesk. They have a so much and are much better than zendesk and Intercom.
If you have a mobile app then use Hotline (https://hotline.io/) they have an integration with freshdesk. This two product go hand in hand and also have a good support team.
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#29Quick question, what would be a good alternative to Zendesk? We've initially chosen it because it seemed pretty standard, but it looks designed for much larger companies. We avoid using it (!) because the UI is confusing, and it's very pricey for what it does (especially that some basic features are locked in the higher-priced tiers). This article doesn't help either.
How big is your team? For smaller teams, I love Front. In looking for things that will likely work better for larger teams (10-15+) Help Scout and Groove are both pretty appealing. Desk.com is like Zendesk in that it tries to "do everything." I haven't evaluated it fully, but a lot of people love Intercom as well if you want to do in-app/on-site support.
Would you please link directly to "Front"? I tried the Google, but apparently "StayInFront", "Soffront", and "Infront" have different legal philosophies with respect to trademark than do the assholes at Zendesk. TIL customer confusion is actually a real thing!
Re: Zendesk and the Art of Trademark Trolling
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
How big is your team? For smaller teams, I love Front. In looking for things that will likely work better for larger teams (10-15+) Help Scout and Groove are both pretty appealing. Desk.com is like Zendesk in that it tries to "do everything." I haven't evaluated it fully, but a lot of people love Intercom as well if you want to do in-app/on-site support.
Would you please link directly to "Front"? I tried the Google, but apparently "StayInFront", "Soffront", and "Infront" have different legal philosophies with respect to trademark than do the assholes at Zendesk. TIL customer confusion is actually a real thing!
Yep, sorry about that: https://frontapp.com/