Thanks! I also love that book, as it's full of practical advice. I really recommend reading Contagious if you haven't because it really made me realise how important all the offline stuff is for a tech startup :)

Thanks for your reply. In answer to some of your questions - no, this letter is not from a lawyer, it's from the company's chairman. Their trademark was registered in 2010 and I can not confirm if they have the resources for an infringement suit, although I do know that they have not actually launched their product as yet.

I appreciate that the information is a bit limited but my intention is not to publicly name and shame so I have tried not to divulge too many specific details. I can say though, that what we share in common is the word 'owl' in our names, we are both building apps for audio content (in their case audiobooks) and in our case radio programmes / podcasts. Our owl logos also look very distinctly different.

The company who is pursuing us, from their letter, seem to feel that we should rebrand and I am wondering if they really have any grounds or are just being a bit pushy. As you mentioned there are several trademarks for 'AMD' in the US and I've found there are also several trademarks that include the word 'owl'. Of course if we had unknowingly named and branded our company exactly the same name as another registered trademark then we would be seriously considering a change. I am not convinced if it is warranted in this case though.

For us wisdom is a positive connotation and also due to the owl's hearing range: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl#Hearing

But, that's probably a bit off topic - our name and the mentioned company's name has the word 'owl' in common, in our case alongside the word 'super' in their case alongside other word(s) so I am investigating how much, if at all, there are any breach of trademark grounds here.

Thanks - you make good points here. Weighing up the importance of our name / brand is definitely worth thinking about. Unlike the company approaching us, luckily we haven't spent all our efforts on branding, registering trademarks etc!.... since we believe in working in a lean, agile and speedy way up until launch (having learnt from previous failures!) we are open to change things when necessary. We need to establish how much of a case there is here, as you've mentioned.

To that end, I think you should start by doing a search here:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-find/t-find-prop.htm

If they hold the mark, I would re-brand. If they do not, I would try to launch as soon as possible with an MVP.

Yes, they do have registered trademarks. Do you think we should rebrand even if we both have different names (with only thw 'owl' part in common), different branding (colour, design etc) and a completely different owl mascot / logo?

What's the company's name? Can't give you specific advice without knowing this. Also, take a look at the company's accounts (buy a digital copy via companies house for £10) - see if they are even in a position to take legal action.

However, just bare in mind, even if you are 'right' and you are not in violation of their trademark, if they have the money there is nothing stopping them from taking you to court after they have tried amicable means to solve the dispute to no avail.

Just to give you an example, I learnt the hard way that even when you are right, it is often better to settle than spend thousands trying to fight - especially if the other party has deep pockets.

I had a legal dispute before where I was legally in the right - 99% chance of success in court, but we decided to settle as going to court usually means everyone loses but the lawyers. It's also pretty stressful. Pick your battles.

I see you have experience of the 'picking your battles' thing and that is exactly what we need to do. This has been very useful and given me valuable perspective. I'll research as necessary and definitely post back here as to how we proceeded.

Thanks, Milly. I think the tricky bit would be how to establish if our logo / name is close enough to theirs to breach their trademarks. I wonder if there are any guidelines on this or if it is based on opinions / review?

At this stage I am looking for general advice, as you mentioned and the replies posted here, including yours, are useful.

Hi, it is decided on a case by case basis - basically a judge has to consider the two together to determine that, but there is general guidance (albeit really, little more than logic) here: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-other/t-infringe.htm. As you can see from his language in his email, the person who wrote to you has clearly read this or something similar.

The Nice Classification governs the breadth of a trademark. Basically you can't register two marks with the same name in the same major class for the same geographic area - that's a slight simplification, but serves here.

If there's (expected to be) confusion then one mark damages the other.

Also, it is worth firing of a quick email to ask if they have registered anything, and specifically, what they have registered. I wouldn't enter into any other correspondence until that information were given.

They have listed the 2 trademarks in letter 1. I guess thats what you are asking for advice about?

So they have, I only skimmed it. My bad.

Hi, You'll find all the details on the meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/Mavericks-Breakfast/

In general around 8 people meet up for breakfast and after a brief intro each person can put forward a specific problem / dilema they would like to round table with the rest of the group.

The idea is that all the variety of experiences and backgrounds of the group can help solve problems quickly or think about them in a different way.

No particular skills are required but everyone attending has to have started or be knee deep in working on a business / startup.

We meet in a coffee shop in central London (close to Farringdon).

Hope this helps... it'll be great to see you there.

A

Thanks Zeeshan - I've e-mailed you.

Interesting - so you're saying that FB targeted ads are effective.... I have no experience of running any FB ads,so it may be worth investigating - thanks!

For getting likes on Facebook pages definitely.

If I was you I'd integrate my product much more closely into FB as well. At the moment the content on your FB page doesn't give anyone much reason to "like" it.

I presume you're generating a stream of audio recommendations for your iPhone app, so why not publish them to Facebook as well. Have each recommendation (or a subset if there's lots) be a story on your Facebook page so users can "like" and discuss an individual recommendation (and push it to their friend stream) as well.

Here's how I do it for my web comic:

http://www.facebook.com/theoryofgeek

Here's how The Economist do it:

http://www.facebook.com/TheEconomist

If you're a content provider your Facebook page should be much more than news about your company.

Really good examples - I agree there's more we can do, in terms of content, on our FB page.

We can give samples of playlists to spark conversation and also as a taster of what to expect on Super Owl. Our editorial team put together the playlists so it's going to be a balancing act of how much we want to give away for free as the Super Owl service will be available for a small monthly subscription when we launch.

We've been quite active on our blog, writing our own articles so it sounds like more of this type of thing can also be done on our FB page.

Facebook ads are very effective in getting fans to your facebook page. Check out http://www.axemantech.com/facebook/get-facebook-fans-very-ch... for details on how to keep your costs down.

Thanks for this link - it's super useful :)

Yes, we have and you're right it's a really good start :)

Perhaps the Super Owl will grow up to be as smart as this owl too :)