Can someone just squat on my trademark?
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There is this user https://gravatar.com/avichand who is just squatting on that name. He has not used it since 2016 and does not even have a blog. I tried to contact the person, but he refused to part with the username. His name is NOT avi chand. His name is avi chandra. So, one can just randomly squat on every permutation and combination of one’s name? This is so silly and a complete misuse of free usernames. These squatters are the worst possible people.
And “Avi Chand Marketing” is my registered trademark. How can someone just squat on what is my registered trademark?? This is neither this person’s name or nickname, nor his company name.
This is such a poor policy on the part of WordPress / Automattic to allow people to squat on usernames without any justification. We have registered the name as a trademark with the Government of India, but apparently WordPress won’t help.
Wordpress seriously needs to reconsider its policies if it wants to avoid misuse and abuse of its policies by squatters. Let this person justify in ANY way that he owns that name. It is not his name and it is not his company name. It is my legal business name. He is just squatting.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Some simple googling learns “With a trademark, you have legal recourse to sue another company that uses your likeness to further their own business ventures.”.
“Avi Chand Marketing” is your registered trademark but it doesn’t prohibit the use of the name avichand or any other variation, as a username on whatever platform. e.g. when I google “Avi Chand” I get about 3.900 hits, “avichand” gives me about 5900 hits, facebook has thousands of profiles usign the name avichand or avi chand … I wish you good luck trying to forbid those people to use the name Avi Chand or avichand even if it’s their own name.
The person you mention couldn’t use the name avichandra on gravatar as it had already been taken. -
Hello there!
Every account on Gravatar has a unique URL, no matter how many people have the same name. You can’t change someone else’s account name. We apologize for the inconvenience
Regards:
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The policy is very lame, because “Avi Chand” is a name, and it is NOT this person’s name. So, by all means, he is just squatting. Had his name been “Avi Chand”, I wouldn’t have even bothered. But this guy is just squatting on a name that is not his!!! By no means whatsoever can this person justify the use of this name. WordPress really should make exceptions in such cases when someone else has a justified claim to a name, and you have none. I have a justified claim to this name, and this random person has none whatsoever. This is like someone call Pep Sid decides to call himself “Pepsi”. This is absolute squatting.
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@staartmees … same person owns avichandra etc. Same person. He is a serious offender when it comes to squatting.
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@staartmees …. this person also has a profile here:
http://en.gravatar.com/chandraavinash
He is sitting on multiple profiles just because they are free. If this is not abuse, I don’t know what is. And WordPress and Automattic won’t do anything about duplicate profiles. This guy is a shameless squatter – completely shameless.
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There is a phrase “First come, first served”. It is not squatting to happen to be the first person to register a particular username here at WordPress.com. Back in the early days someone chose the username johnsmith. No doubt this has annoyed the thousands of other John Smiths creating accounts since that would have liked that username but have to choose a variation. Life is full of disappointments.
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@themagicrobot … like I’ve said above, this is something like a guy called Sid Pepe calling himself “Pepsi” and WordPress not doing anything about it just because it’s “first come, first served”
This guy has multiple profiles: he owns https://gravatar.com/avichand and https://gravatar.com/chandraavinash … he is completely shameless. And, yes, he is a squatter.
My point is very simple: if there is a dispute (as there is in this case), WordPress should give the username to the person who has a legal claim to that name. “Nickname” is a load of bollocks – “Avi Chand” is not his legal alias. If this guy can’t legally prove his claim to a username, he should have to vacate it. He cannot SQUAT on every permutation and combination of his name just because usernames are free. I have shown you two duplicate profiles. The same guy has other profiles as well. WordPress should really kick out a guy with multiple profiles and without any legal claim to at least one of them. “Avi Chand” is my legal business name. Let this squatter prove his legal claim in anyway whatsoever and I will back off. His name is “Avinash Chandra”, not “Avi Chand”, whereas my registered trademark is “Avi Chand Marketing”
Wordpress seriously needs to consider this.
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Usernames here are not the same thing as registered domains that you pay for and need to keep on paying for to make sure you don’t lose them when they are purchased by others. Someone chose the username pepsi back in the early days of WordPress.com. That may be their name/nickname or even could be the company Pepsi or just someone else entirely.
https://wordpress.com/forums/users/pepsi/ -
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https://gravatar.com/pepsi doesn’t excist anymore.
I do think you must be aware of the limitations of a trademark. Googling “trademark limitations” gives you very usefull informations. -
@staartmees … yes, the user Pepsi has been removed for Spam. I think he may have been reported
Anyway, look, my point is simple and very important. This user who is misappropriating my trademark is in the exact same business as my company – he is also in the business of Brand Consulting. Any marketing or search engine optimization we may do, can potentially benefit him and cause us serious monetary loss – I may even lose clients to this person. This is a very legitimate concern. He is operating in the same geography. WordPress should consider this very seriously that we stand to lose search engine traffic to this person who can easily gain from and benefit from all our marketing efforts. This is very unfair to us.
Now, given that we are the first to register the trademark, we should be given priority. I CANNOT change my business name, my email, my website (http://www.avichand.com), and all my marketing collateral. This person’s rights to the name should be immediately withdrawn. I wish there were some other way to contact WordPress other than just a trademark infringement form. I wish there were some way to contact a human being on their team.
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We all are human beings. WordPress.com doesn’t have phone support, so all communication goes through this public forum. I refer to https://automattic.com/trademark-policy/ to start a complaint and get attention from wordpress.com Staff.
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@staartmees Well, I have submitted that form, but I fear that WordPress is going to consider it very mechanically, without giving it a thought that having the same name and being in the same business. this person can cause us monetary loss
Anyway, I have filled the form. I am yet to hear from WordPress.
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Hi there,
We do not discuss TM issues in the public forum. However, if you have filled out the Trademark Policy form, someone from that department should touch base with you soon: https://automattic.com/trademark-policy/
Thanks,
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staff-doublebassd
Hi Darnell, I have filled out the trademark policy form, but I fear it may not be enough to get WordPress to consider my main concern. The main problem is that this user (https://gravatar.com/avichand) has the same name as my business and is in the exact same business of brand consulting. So, any marketing efforts or any search engine optimization efforts we may put in may benefit this user and may cause us serious monetary loss. As the name is our registered business name, I request we be given control of the username as we intend to blog from the name.
This person has duplicate profiles at https://gravatar.com/avichand and https://gravatar.com/chandraavinash – so I don’t understand why they need two profiles with the exact same information. It seems like squatting and should be considered a serious threat to our business. We own the domains avichand.com, avichand.org, and avichand.net. We are also a registered business with the Government of India. This person has neither avichand as his legal name, nor his business name – so why should he be allowed to hold on to this name?
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staff-doublebassd
The heart of the matter is that any marketing or search engine optimization we may do will unfairly benefit a competing business in the exact same business – hence, this is misleading and a trademark infringement – it is a very serious conflict of interest.
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Hi @avichandco,
Did you articulate those particular concerns you mention above in your initial form submission? If not, feel free to create another submission to elaborate on your concerns. I am sure the team would appreciate the information as they look into this for you.
Thanks,
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