Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#61

Post by JohnMakin » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

DrillShopper wrote: post #51

JohnMakin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ignore the cease and desist, they take you to court (still unlikely because they also incur cost they dont want). You don't need a lawyer to go to a courtroom, they will order you to take it down and then you do. They're very unlikely to sue for damages because the cost of their lawyers far exceed whatever 'damages' are in place here, which I would assume are close to zero. Please don't fold immediately to this t…

> You don't need a lawyer to go to a courtroom You don't need one, but it is incredibly ill-advised and reckless to go into a case like this without a lawyer. > They're very unlikely to sue for damages Lawyer's fees are very often moved for in IP infringement cases, so even if they don't sue for damages, you're going to end up paying their lawyers. > Please don't fold immediately to this tired legal tactic. If you fe…

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Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#62

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:03 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #40

Cease and desists are the equivalent of asking firmly but nicely in the legal world. They don't hold any legal bearing or obligate you to any sort of response. They are usually hoping you get intimidated into doing what they ask. You can always call their bluff and say 'no,' although I see in comments the OP neglected to mention they also patched/fixed the technique used to get this data so it probably was more of th…

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Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#63

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #40

Cease and desists are the equivalent of asking firmly but nicely in the legal world. They don't hold any legal bearing or obligate you to any sort of response. They are usually hoping you get intimidated into doing what they ask. You can always call their bluff and say 'no,' although I see in comments the OP neglected to mention they also patched/fixed the technique used to get this data so it probably was more of th…

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Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#64

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #39

There's a world where Waffle House acquires this from him for like $50k and it's an endearing story of corporate humanity. But if I'm running the WH brand, I simply don't want to be the semi-official corporate sponsor of every major natural disaster.

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Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#65

Post by unethical_ban » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

I can understand, particularly with the branding, that they would want you to stop making people think that is an official site.

Imagine the scraper breaks for 24 hours and in that time, several WHs shut down due to a natural disaster. Someone looks at this site, decides to travel in their car, and gets electrocuted by a downed power line. They sue WH because they were relying on that information, and by goodness it looked official.

WH was aware of the site, and if they don't tell you to stop, then are they complicit in the person being fooled into trusting it and thinking it's a first-party site?

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I think the site itself should have been allowed to stay up, had the style been changed to clearly be unofficial and had sufficient disclaimers. It sounds to me like their legal department is scared shitless of the implications of people actually relying on the Waffle House Index to make life and death decisions.

Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#66

Post by AStonesThrow » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

lafond wrote: post #28

nice_scott wrote: post #25

if the issue was just using the trademark and likeness, why not just remove those issues of contention, and keep the site up and running under a different domain? it wasn't mentioned that they had an issue with the data scraping.

Author here! After receiving the C&D, the method with which I was getting the data was removed/patched (which I'm now noticing was not mentioned in the blog post...) I did ask them if there was any thing I could to keep it up and never received a response, and rather than playing a cat & mouse game of "now you don't have our branding, but you are scraping are data so here's another C&D" I just took it down :)

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Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#67

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #54

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But he was using a variation of the Waffle House logo that their lawyers would argue would "confuse the average consumer", and he was using the "Waffle House" name in a domain. In something that was actually directly related to the real Waffle House. Unfortunately, their lawyers would have an easy time with that lawsuit. If op had named it something different, and didn't use such a closely inspired logo, he pro…

> But he was using a variation of the Waffle House logo that their lawyers would argue would "confuse the average consumer", and he was using the "Waffle House" name in a domain. In something that was actually directly related to the real Waffle House. Unfortunately, their lawyers would have an easy time with that lawsuit For this to be trademark infringement, wouldn't he need to be selling products or services that…

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Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#68

Post by kevincox » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #54

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But he was using a variation of the Waffle House logo that their lawyers would argue would "confuse the average consumer", and he was using the "Waffle House" name in a domain. In something that was actually directly related to the real Waffle House. Unfortunately, their lawyers would have an easy time with that lawsuit. If op had named it something different, and didn't use such a closely inspired logo, he pro…

> But he was using a variation of the Waffle House logo that their lawyers would argue would "confuse the average consumer", and he was using the "Waffle House" name in a domain. In something that was actually directly related to the real Waffle House. Unfortunately, their lawyers would have an easy time with that lawsuit For this to be trademark infringement, wouldn't he need to be selling products or services that…

No, there just has to be a risk that consumers think that this is somehow associated with Waffle House. The point of a trademark isn't directly commercial. It isn't about preventing other people from making money from your brand. It is about protecting the integrity of your trademark so that when users see your name and logo they know it comes from you.

Basically trademarks are like a signature, they "prove" who you are doing business with.

Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#69

Post by loopdoend » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #39

There's a world where Waffle House acquires this from him for like $50k and it's an endearing story of corporate humanity. But if I'm running the WH brand, I simply don't want to be the semi-official corporate sponsor of every major natural disaster.

I think you hit the nail on the head, waffle house index has too many negative connotations.

Re: Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House

#70

Post by dowager_dan99 » Wed, May 28, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

PhotonHunter wrote: post #43

JohnMakin wrote: post #40

Cease and desists are the equivalent of asking firmly but nicely in the legal world. They don't hold any legal bearing or obligate you to any sort of response. They are usually hoping you get intimidated into doing what they ask. You can always call their bluff and say 'no,' although I see in comments the OP neglected to mention they also patched/fixed the technique used to get this data so it probably was more of th…

Is it completely correct to say they have no legal bearing? As I understand things, they can be used to establish a date when someone was made aware of infringement, and that date can be used to start the clock on enhanced damages.

How would they confirm that you received an email or even letter mail? They're not serving you. This is about potentially proving that the owner is trying to protect their IP, which is required for it to be considered enforceable.