I really admired the way the you spoke about the Holden Outerwear company; receiving a C&D is a hard thing, but you handled it in a respectful and classy way by casting in terms of "if this could cause a good company harm then we shouldn't move forward." I don't know if that's on advice of counsel or not, but either way, it comes across well.
It would have been super easy to call them jackasses, ass hats, etc. But, these guys took the high road, linked their site (driving traffic), and even called them rad.
Thank you for the support guys. It is definitely a hard thing to experience -- the first reaction was definitely profoundly 'fuck' followed by 'this sucksssss'.
but at the end of the day, these guys have spent a long time building an incredible company, their designs are really awesome, and everything from their videos to their site design just screams 'rad'.
We're really stoked to build a company the way we want to.. making the decisions we feel are right. Yvon Chouinard wrote a book called 'Let My People Go Surfing' that was really inspirational to us.
I don't see how you could think there would be no confusion. Your Kickstarter page shows you offering t-shirts, polos, and hoodies; various types of garments. Holden Outerwear sells t-shirts and hoodies (though no polos); various types of garments as well.
I'd agree with your conclusion if you were a graphic design company or in any other unrelated industry, but the fact that you're selling garments using the name "Holden" and an existing mark holder sells garments using the name "Holden" seems pretty clear-cut to me.
A quick search yields these active trademarks [edit: hopefully these are permalinks]:
Here's the goods and services covered for the first (word) mark:
IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: clothing, namely, jackets,
sweaters, sweatshirts, pants, t-shirts, shirts, vests and
outerwear, namely, snow pants, snow jackets, snow suits,
insulated and thermal pants, jackets, and shirts;
headgear, namely, hats, caps. FIRST USE: 20020000. FIRST
USE IN COMMERCE: 20020000
The second is the mark in stylized form which is in cursive like yours is.
Fair use with geographic distinction is a complicated topic, with recent court rulings (ie, KP Permanent Make-Up, Inc. v. Lasting Impression I, Inc); we did our best to grok this, but in the end, it simply isn't in anyone's interests to fight.
We are not keen on harming another company to build our own. Our hope was that this would not be the case, as there is very little overlap: Holden Outerwear makes branded t-shirts only, while focusing on Outerwear; we make non-branded shirts.
Let's turn this into a positive, find a great name we all love, and get these shirts made! I'm as eager as all of you for the first run, my closet could use an upgrade.
I challenge you to find a city near Holden, MA that doesn't sound like a menswear company. Sterling, Millbury, Brookfield, Oxford, Webster, Clinton, Boylston, Northbridge, Holliston, Douglas...
o Word Mark HOLBROOK
o Goods and Services IC 025. US 022 039.
o G & S: men's suits, sportcoats, and slacks.
o FIRST USE: 19970201.
o FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19970201
o Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
o Serial Number 74551492
o Filing Date July 20, 1994
o Current Basis 1A
o Original Filing Basis 1B
o Published for Opposition November 5, 1996
o Registration Number 2089513
o Word Mark HOLBROOK
o Goods and Services IC 025. US 039.
o G & S: MEN'S AND BOY'S SHIRTS.
o FIRST USE: 19391213.
o FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19391213
o Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
o Serial Number 72318672
o Filing Date February 7, 1969
o Current Basis 1A
o Original Filing Basis 1A
o Registration Number 0917690
o Registration Date August 3, 1971
From Holbrook Pond. But I'm just looking at Google Maps. Maybe pick a pond where you'd go swimming, so long as it has something different sounding, like Hatcase Pond.
If your favorite pond was Chemo Pond, lie, or find some other idea.
I used to go to a summer camp on Chemo Pond when I was growing up. Not that that's relevant to this conversation, it's just not every day I see a discussion of the area in which I grew up on Hacker News. Nice area. I hope you guys do well.
You are at an early stage in your startup. A name change would not impact you negatively. In fact, this can be turned into a brilliant PR move if you play your cards right. I love this sort of scenarios, they are just amazing marketing opportunites. Much more for such a great product.
I run an available domain name search tool called Lean Domain Search [1] that might help. I ran a few relevant keywords through the premium version of the site and filtered the results so that you're only seeing the ones that end with these terms (which generally make better small business names). Here are the results:
The farther down these lists you go the more brandable the names are. You should be able to find something in these that suit your business well, plus you know that the .com is available too. If you'd like me to run other keywords just drop me a note: matt@leandomainsearch.com.
The top of the outerwear list gave, to me, quite horrible suggestions. Looking at the very bottom of the list though, provided much better suggestions such as AtlasPeakOuterwear or OpenPlanOuterwear (no limits with open plan).
The way Lean Domain Search works is that it pairs your search term (like outerwear with other keywords commonly found in domain names. Because the results are sorted by how popular the keyword is, the domain names at the top are names you'd often associate with websites such as GoOuterwear, WebOuterwear, etc. As you move farther down the list you get to keywords that are more often used to name small businesses instead of websites.
I had a similar run-in with my first attempt at a music player/streamer, originally called 'musicMe'.
Apparently there's a French music streaming service with the same name [1] and I promptly received an email with an informal C+D from one of the owners regarding that moniker.
I changed it to 'melodyMe', ridiculously similar, but enough to be a separate entity.
The point I make, is maybe you can circumvent without majorly changing your name to a related term, if you're linked to the area. Why not "From Venice"? A Google search shows it pretty clear for use as a startup name.
That's exactly what I thought of! Practically an entire generation of Australians owe their existence to the spacious backseat of the Kingswood, so it's a name with pedigree.
My immediate thought too .. that said "Kingswood" would actually be a good name for a clothing company. It's related to Holden but not in any way that could possibly breach trademark laws as it's a totally different industry.
To be completely honest, I thought this WAS a Holden Outerwear project when I checked it out from your first post. Even the branding looks similar (Holden outwear also frequently uses a handwriting style logo).
I think I saw some Holden Outerwear adwords ads when I googled From Holden, so I guess it makes sense there could be confusion. I'd reach out to the founder there and intro yourself, since you are so close to him geographically.
Well, thank you for having the decency to post this, and try to find another name in a peaceful manner (even though you do believe you're using the Holden name under fair use - a discussion I don't particularity want to get into). Also, thankfully they had the decency to inform you before taking action, unlike some companies...
"What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
We tossed around Caulfield -- we like it as well. Another LA designed did a line called 'caulfield preparatory'. Still in the running, for sure - what do you guys think?
The trouble is, it's not something that's immediately spellable (from memory) by someone who hasn't read the book, which limits your potential customers and probably your word of mouth. It would suck if people went to tweet about you and misspelled your URL or name.
I work over at Google Consumer Surveys and wanted to offer you a coupon to run a free test to gauge opinions on some different names once you have a few options you like.
Shoot me an e-mail and I'll be happy to send it your way.
My train of thought:
From Holden --> Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye) --> Books influential to adolescence --> A Separate Peace --> Gene Forrester --> Phineas --> Finny --> uspto.gov --> Live trademark search --> Finnie --> domai.nr --> "phinn.ie" --> back to uspto.gov --> "phinnie" is good to go
phinnie (phinn.ie) one more name to toss in your hat.
Love your correspondence, but changing names is actually par for the course in early startup land. I did the same when we encountered a USPTO trademark objection. Better to drop the name than fight an uphill battle -- better use of your precious money resources.
Besides, think of it this way -- why would you want a name you couldn't get major Google search SEO / a twitter handle, facebook page, and other benefits? Sharing a name with another company is more hassle than its worth, even if there wasn't a trademark conflict.
Some ideas for you. Try reverse names:
Nedloh is Holden backwards. Or your county is Penobscot, which has an interesting (almost) backwards name, minus the P: Tocsbone.
Holden, Maine seems to be on the edge of Bangor. If you wanted to keep things similar you could be "From Bangor". Granted that doesn't have quite as nice a ring. You could find another nearby geographic name that has some meaning to you.
I don't think it will be possible to pick a name from a list. The name has to resonate with you guys, it has to have the passion that you have - a soul..aka a story that you can get behind.
Hmm..why don't you go back(metaphorically) to Holden, the town, and look at things that inspire you, things that stand for Holden, things that remind you of your time there.
Thats what I would do :)
Edit: if you want to hash out ideas along this type of thinking, feel free to reach out. I love this type of stuff!
Just kidding. But seriously, pay a lawyer to do a trademark search when you decide on your new name. It's fairly cheap and can give you a great peace of mind.
Thing is you need to be able to interpret the results, understand how Vienna Classification works, what the limitations are on others names, et cetera.
In the case at issue I'm surprised that the US trademark system allows a mere geographic location as this seems to lack distinctiveness: The mark has to be an indicator of the originating company and the name of an area, when that area is close or coincident with the companies operation region, tends away from the use of a mark for such purposes.
Perhaps the specific form of the mark is what's registered in which case one may need only use a different presentation of the text, eg different font, to avoid conflict.
Marketing materials that fall in to someone else's registration classification area must be a known case; I'd be surprised if the courts were to follow the line of it being considered infringing as it's clearly not - in the general case - a genuine infringement and the chance of confusion has to infinitesimal.
Keep in mind that a trademark doesn't have to be registered to be valid. So paying a lawyer to search for trademarks in common law usage is always a good idea.
Just a thought. what about making the change simple...rather than thinking of alternate names, adapt what you have: 'From H'
It allows you to keep your home reference (you know what it means), removes any trade off arguments (there appears to be no other garment manufacturer with that name or anything similar), and asks your audience a question...what's the 'H' stand for?
A question you can then answer. This story's good for PR, so why not roll with it...tell the tale on your future website (sure Holden Outerwear wouldn't mind as they get free publicity/traffic); run campaigns from time to time asking people to select their favourite H & make versions of the top choices; create ranges using different H's for different seasons etc. (doesn't have to mean lots of text on the t-shirts...this could be on the labels to make them limited editions).
The 'H' becomes whatever your audience want it to be. Creating discussion about you amongst your early adopter audience who want to find out more.
As I said...just a thought. Your article was a nice read, and your story is a good one. Wish you all the best with it.
Call them. Holden Outerwear. Not their lawyers. They may have no idea whatsoever that their lawyers are doing this. Even if they do, they are not hearing the story of how awesome you guys are being.
Call them and tell them that there are no hard feelings and invite them out for beers.
Not From Bangor
3 Holdin' On
3 Hole Den
Muskrat Falls
Nedloh Morf
Between Three Ponds
Upper Right Corner
From Maine
Davis Fields
Bangor's Three
Somewhere In Maine
By Fields' Pond
I like that last one because of the ambiguity of the apostrophe, a question which can never be resolved because no-one can really be sure whether such a name comes from someone named Fields or from its location near some fields.
Lot's to choose from. Think of a logo to go with the name and choose the one that provides the best combo of name and graphical device.
Linefeeds don't work. Let me say that again with some commas: Not From Bangor, 3 Holdin' On, 3 Hole Den, Muskrat Falls, Nedloh Morf, Between Three Ponds, Upper Right Corner, From Maine, Davis Fields, Bangor's Three, Somewhere In Maine, By Fields' Pond
To keep with the theme you've worked with thus far, you might use a name still closely associated with your hometown, such as Holbrook, Mann Hill, etc.
The impact on your company ethos would be relatively small, and there does seem to be a fair number of pleasant names in the geographical area.
>>We’d really like it to be in some way connected to our mission — to craft the very best version of everything we make. To build with a minimalist aesthetic, and deliver quality at a fair price, directly to our customer.
If you are looking for a domain to go with it, may I suggest: fixel, gothx, syndi, or vouge ? They are all free to use if you support open source. Contact me holden @ myusername dot org
We definitely support open source. I'm very active in the Chef / DevOps communities, and have been using/supporting OSS for over 10 years. The first iteration of our storefront was built using a 31 line chef recipe, rails, spree, nginx, unicorn, and postgresql.
So do you like any of the names I suggested? You can use one for FREE! Check out OpenDomain - we have given domains like Drupal.com, OsCon.com, schema.org, openajax.org and recently webplatform.com
Ah, no not at all! It was our fault, HN saved us a bunch of time and money -- I'm glad we are making the change now versus six months down the road after we made print collateral, labels, etc.
I really like the feel of your brand and when I looked at your logo the handwritten script gave it a hand-crafted, authentic feeling. That made me think of signatures and calligraphy.
James and I grew up in a town in Maine called Holden, so the name meant a lot to us. A couple months ago someone had mentioned the Holden snowboarding company. We did some research on trademark fair use, and ultimately agreed that because Holden was a geographic area, and because we weren’t doing outerwear or snowboard gear, and because our clothes won’t have any visible logos, there’d be no chance a consumer would confuse the brands. A handful of people on HackerNews pointed out that it might be more of a conflict than anticipated.*
Holden sells all sorts of clothes, including the type of shirts you would be selling. There is significant potential for consumer confusion.
