I received an email from Autodesk yesterday. They are policing the use of their trademarks in domain names. I am not alone in this. I have heard from many others that have already been through this.
This blog uses a primary domain www.revitoped.com as a redirect to this blog's address at Google's Blogger (revitoped.blogspot.com). The essence of the letter is a demand to surrender the domain (and domains for Revit Inside and Revit JOBS) to Autodesk. I registered the domains to shorten the URL required to get to the blogs. It's easier for business cards and little easier to remember.
Obviously I'll deal with this outside of this blog. Pending that outcome I may end up making some changes around here. Maybe I'll call it tiveR OpEd instead?
In the meantime, I thought I'd share the letter I think I should have received as they are actively enforcing their trademarks. This is NOT the letter I received.
Dear Mr. Stafford
We are writing to you because you are the registrant for three web domain addresses and blogs that use the registered trademark "Revit" in them: Revit OpEd, Revit Inside and Revit JOBS.
As you know we are a company that offers many products in the marketplace. Many companies register trademarks. Revit is one, of the many, trademarks Autodesk has registered. In order to maintain and demonstrate active ownership and control of a trademark Autodesk is required to continuously police the use of its trademarks or risk losing them. Any person or company that uses a registered trademark needs to do so within boundaries and guidelines set forth by law and by the registered company's policies.
We have visited each of your sites and reviewed the content therein to determine how each bears on the trademark and Autodesk's own goals and objectives for Revit. We observed that each is focused on the needs of Revit users and is not merely a site focused on generating income by misdirecting or attracting click-thru traffic based on a domain name likely to appear in common search criteria by Autodesk Revit users.
We also asked our own product and marketing staff about your sites to get a sense of their impact on and/or relevance to our customers. Their feedback reinforced our own observations and we are grateful for the support your sites have given to our products and customers.
We have attached a Fair Use Agreement for you to review. To summarize the agreement, it stipulates that as long as you continue to operate your blogs in the manner you have already demonstrated for many years you can continue to do so, and continue using these web domains with Autodesk's permission.
We are looking forward to hearing from you so we can continue to support each other and Autodesk's customers.
Autodesk Legal
To close this post, in my view, there is nothing that prevents Autodesk from granting me permission to use their trademark in my domain name, other than a willingness to do so. I understand their situation. Where they lose my understanding is how they approached the situation with me personally. If they did a modest amount of research (externally and internally) they'd realize they are "poking a friend in the eye" over nothing. This really isn't a "slippery slope argument", that granting permission for me means they have to do so for everyone, though they ought to. I don't think their customers care if I use their trademark in my blog domain. I seriously doubt there is even the slightest consumer confusion. The reality is my blogs are such a small piece of the Internet that it is bit amusing that this is even an issue. That it is an issue is definitely a waste of resources.
I'll follow up with another post to indicate if I'll be making some changes or continuing on as before as soon as I know, either way.
This blog uses a primary domain www.revitoped.com as a redirect to this blog's address at Google's Blogger (revitoped.blogspot.com). The essence of the letter is a demand to surrender the domain (and domains for Revit Inside and Revit JOBS) to Autodesk. I registered the domains to shorten the URL required to get to the blogs. It's easier for business cards and little easier to remember.
Obviously I'll deal with this outside of this blog. Pending that outcome I may end up making some changes around here. Maybe I'll call it tiveR OpEd instead?
In the meantime, I thought I'd share the letter I think I should have received as they are actively enforcing their trademarks. This is NOT the letter I received.
Dear Mr. Stafford
We are writing to you because you are the registrant for three web domain addresses and blogs that use the registered trademark "Revit" in them: Revit OpEd, Revit Inside and Revit JOBS.
As you know we are a company that offers many products in the marketplace. Many companies register trademarks. Revit is one, of the many, trademarks Autodesk has registered. In order to maintain and demonstrate active ownership and control of a trademark Autodesk is required to continuously police the use of its trademarks or risk losing them. Any person or company that uses a registered trademark needs to do so within boundaries and guidelines set forth by law and by the registered company's policies.
We have visited each of your sites and reviewed the content therein to determine how each bears on the trademark and Autodesk's own goals and objectives for Revit. We observed that each is focused on the needs of Revit users and is not merely a site focused on generating income by misdirecting or attracting click-thru traffic based on a domain name likely to appear in common search criteria by Autodesk Revit users.
We also asked our own product and marketing staff about your sites to get a sense of their impact on and/or relevance to our customers. Their feedback reinforced our own observations and we are grateful for the support your sites have given to our products and customers.
We have attached a Fair Use Agreement for you to review. To summarize the agreement, it stipulates that as long as you continue to operate your blogs in the manner you have already demonstrated for many years you can continue to do so, and continue using these web domains with Autodesk's permission.
We are looking forward to hearing from you so we can continue to support each other and Autodesk's customers.
Autodesk Legal
To close this post, in my view, there is nothing that prevents Autodesk from granting me permission to use their trademark in my domain name, other than a willingness to do so. I understand their situation. Where they lose my understanding is how they approached the situation with me personally. If they did a modest amount of research (externally and internally) they'd realize they are "poking a friend in the eye" over nothing. This really isn't a "slippery slope argument", that granting permission for me means they have to do so for everyone, though they ought to. I don't think their customers care if I use their trademark in my blog domain. I seriously doubt there is even the slightest consumer confusion. The reality is my blogs are such a small piece of the Internet that it is bit amusing that this is even an issue. That it is an issue is definitely a waste of resources.
I'll follow up with another post to indicate if I'll be making some changes or continuing on as before as soon as I know, either way.
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