SparkFun Gets a Cease and Desist Letter

Not cool. I realize that companies feel like they have to protect their trademark, even in borderline cases. However, this seems like a boneheaded move for SPARC. People using SparkFun tend to be young techies, the kind of people who might go on to become the hardware purchasing decision makers in larger companies.

Go to <a href="http://tess2.uspto.gov/" rel="nofollow">http://tess2.uspto.gov/</a> and do a basic search on 'spark' and 'sparc'. Are they sending c &#38; d letters to these people too?<p>If they're suing SparkFun it must mean they want to use it in some 'Fun With Sparc' marketing campaign. The agency that came up with the idea is now panicked because they didn't bother to do a domain search prior to the pitch and when it finally came up during last Tuesday's status meeting it was decided to send it to legal and the person 'who handles these things.'<p>May as well do a trademark search on 'backpedal' while we're at it.<p>I like SparkFun and have purchased from them. There is absolutely no confusing them with the other guys who push iron (and now databases) for a living.

Congratulations, guys; you've made it into the big time!<p>Seriously. Somebody remind me how hard it's supposed to be to get into law school again? Sure, you gotta protect your client's trademark, but this is ridiculous.<p>Reminds me of when I worked for a little hardware company and we got an order from RamBus requiring that we disclose all sales we made of devices using RAM chips because we weren't paying them royalties. Our attorney (nice having a lawyer on your Board) just crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash, "they're just on a fishing expedition. I'll wait til they get serious!" Was the last we ever heard of it.

Well that's Deja-vu for me big time. The exact same thing happened to us. It turned out that the "plaintiff" was not even aware that the law firm involved was taking the action. They had used them years ago to register some marks and had some sort of perpetual retainer agreement. The lawyer had just run low on clients and was fishing for billable hours. The other company were friends of ours so we settled it most amiably. They were as surprised as we were.<p>The bad new is that sparkfun is still going to lose even if they get to keep sparkfun.com. When I looked into the cost of defense, even in the right... its likely worth more than all of sparkfun the company put together. Their case seems ever weaker than ours.<p>I'd heard stories like this before, and thought them to be exaggerations. Surely the insanity couldn't have reached that level. It <i>must</i> just be sour grapes from those companies who were just a little bit shady. If it happened to us, well, we'd just explain that we had no ill intentions, it was an honest mistake, surely no one would confuse our name with... There are people in this world who have decided that its A-OK to make their living antagonizing the clearly innocent. This for me was the biggest shock.<p>Choose a new name boys, you're patent/trademark activists now, just like me.<p>Edit: Oh! I'm definitely ordering my Sparkfun hoodie while I still can! If they do lose the name, nothing will say <i>"arduino geek"</i> quite like that defunct nameplate. Wearing that badboy to maker-faire will be like wearing a Lion-O tshirt to comic-con.

now that Sparc mention it... SparkFun <i>does</i> sound like SparcFun,<p>Let's hope the two parties can resolve this amicably.<p>Choosing a domain name/brand is so damn hard. You can think you're in the clear and years later an established company can realise or assert there's a conflict.

Why does this happen in this day and age?<p>Another case of trademark trolling: <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8810200" rel="nofollow">http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8810200</a>

Is it really that ridiculous? I'm not a lawyer, but I can see both sides to this.<p>The whole purpose of a trademark is to protect your brand from anything that could be construed as "confusingly similar". Spark and Sparc sound the same and are nearly identical in spelling, and they are both involved in the tech industry.<p>Whomever made the decision to send a C&#38;D wasn't completely out of line in their reasoning. (Especially since it does not cost a whole lot to send a C&#38;D. It will cost a lot more to take it to court, which I expect will be a factor in SparkFun's decision making process.)<p>That said, saying the two similar names are in the "tech industry" may not be sufficient justification for the trademark dispute any longer. The industry has so much breadth nowadays and there are so many businesses involved, as long as SparkFun can prove that there is enough differentiation between what they do and what Sparc does they can probably get around it (with some legal tapdancing).<p>This would probably not be an issue if SparkFun sold handmade chocolate candies :-)

Firefox thinks sparc.org is an "attack site":<p><a href="http://i36.tinypic.com/f2trth.png" rel="nofollow">http://i36.tinypic.com/f2trth.png</a>

I have to say, I agree with the lawyers on this one. They are similar products, i.e. electronics, not like coffee and computers. Brand names aren't just written, they are spoken. They are both electronics. SPARC customers <i>could</i> think SparkFun is actually related to SPARC.<p>I think the SparkFun team is going to lose this one.

Looks like some lawyer needs to justify his compensations.

I really love sparkfun, it a great company with a great site, i feel terribe about this. You have to be crazy to think that a SPARC computer can be so FUN that you would spect to find something about it in sparkfun.com

SparkFun has been operating nationally (internationally?) for years. You'd think somebody at SPARC would've noticed by now. If I were SparkFun, I'd expect that SPARC's inaction over all these years would count for something.

Sounds like a soon-to-be botched attempt at "job preservation".

Just rename your company OrACoolFunk.