They should compromise and get it over with: If SEOmoz think the Doz brand is truly a problem for them, they should pay Doz a fair sum to abandon their trademark.
How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
21–30 of 164 posts
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#22Check out all the variations on http://?oz.com . Will you sue all of them for confusion? 3 letter word trademark arguments are pretty lame. Actually some of the ?oz.com sites are pretty bizarre.
I think it has to do with the fact that Moz and Doz are in the same industry. If I run Poz.com and I sell dog products (I realize the real Poz.com doesn't), I probably won't get a letter.
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#23Check out all the variations on http://?oz.com . Will you sue all of them for confusion? 3 letter word trademark arguments are pretty lame. Actually some of the ?oz.com sites are pretty bizarre.
It's not just the name. Doz in and of itself has no meaning similar to Moz. The issue is the combination of name + tool focus.
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#24Very 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!
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#25Slightly off topic, but does it feel 'fishy' and 'unfair' to anyone else that this was published 2 days after the rebranding was announced?
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#26Very 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!
Mozilla and MOZ provide pretty different products. If your in a different category, it's often not "reasonable".
It's the same with Mojang's "Scrolls" vs Bethesda's "Elder Scrolls". It's silly, but because they're both in the video game category, it was a problem. If someone sold a product named "Scrolls" that was a gummy candy that looked like a scroll, it would probably be fine.
The law is unfortunate either way.
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#27Pulling over my comments on the matter from Inbound.org. Anji mentions a partnership in his post that I wanted to put come context behind. > When Anji reached out to us initially, they were CapSEO. At the time, I had no idea Doz existed, or that CapSEO was rebranding. As Anji and I talked, the discussion was around the functionality of CapSEO, which I saw as complementary. Later the discussion moved to their plans to…
I think this blog post, and some of the facts that seem to be missing from it (as Andrew outlined above), shows that doz.com is trying to get people on their side without being entirely transparent. Which is a shame. Their argument dilutes when the moz.com people can come out with significant corrections to the facts.
That said, come on - moz.com (which you JUST changed to) and doz.com? I think you had other options than the "we're going to cancel your trademark" route.
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#28Check out all the variations on http://?oz.com . Will you sue all of them for confusion? 3 letter word trademark arguments are pretty lame. Actually some of the ?oz.com sites are pretty bizarre.
It's not just the name. Doz in and of itself has no meaning similar to Moz. The issue is the combination of name + tool focus.
Jen you might want to disclose that you work for Moz :-)
Full disclosure: I'm Jen's friend.
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#29"Even if it is a meritless suit like this one"
This statement lacks arguments supporting it.
DOZ is "Search and Social Media Marketing done by professionals" according to their website, and Moz is "Software and Community for better Marketing". IANAL but I feel like there could indeed be confusion between the two, especially considering DOZ was CapSEO before, and Moz, SEOMoz.
So now it's a matter of trademarks and specifically timeline on who was first, but the details are not provided in the post.
Re: How SEOMoz sent us a takedown notice.
#30Very 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!
This certainly wasn't their strategy. IIRC, SEOMoz started out as SEO consultants and evolved into a software product supporting SEO / inbound marketing.