Today I received an email sent via the whois information email and one via the contact form on this site. The message came from Aimee Gessner, a legal counsel at the BMW group. It is about Trademark Infringement, because I used their logo where I only changed the colors, using the colors from Google's logo :
I was expecting that one day or another someone somewhere will say something about it, about the fact that my little blog out there is doing harm to the big BMW Trademark, as if... hahaha..
But anyway, I made my logo from the BMW logo after choosing the domain name and that it could be abbreviated as BMW, I wanted the words blog, wiki and money in my domain name because of the things I wanted to do back last year with a blog (WordPress) and a wiki (MediaWiki).
Finally it didn't (yet) end up the way I imagined it...
Well, anyway, about the BMW Trademark Infringement, I acted upon it today by redoing a logo that you can see in the upper left corner, here I use 3 times the number 3 in different positions to make up B M and W, it's nice too, and so it's the end of the BMW-like logo. It lasted one year, which is pretty good, but congratulations should be given to the legal counsels of BMW for being able to find my little blog amongst all those website on earth.. Maybe they simply used google images and wrote "BMW logo" and saw my strangely colored logo, because my image file was called something like that anyway. :-)
So, for posterity, here's the message I received, note that they well described my use of the logo, it's not a template letter, it's a personalized message and it's appreciated:
To: James Colin, blog-money-wiki.com
c/o DreamHost WebHosting
417 Associated Rd #324
Brea, CA 92821
USA
Dear Mr. Colin,
It has recently been brought to our attention that you are using the BMW logo on your web site at blog-money-wiki.com.
Please be informed that the BMW logo is a registered trademark owned by BMW AG in over 140 countries worldwide, including the United States. Through substantial use and promotion, the BMW mark is considered a famous mark which is afforded a broad scope of protection under US trademark law.
We are concerned that the use of our trademark within your web site is likely to cause confusion as to the source, sponsorship, or affiliation of your web site, all in contravention of federal and state trademark laws. Furthermore, use of the BMW logo dilutes our trademark in contravention of federal and state anti-dilution statutes. The fact that you have added the colours green, red and yellow to the quadrants of the BMW logo does not alleviate any liability. The fact that your web site name blog-money-wiki.com can be abbreviated with the letters B, M and W does not justify the use of the trademark "BMW" or our logo. Your use of our trademark for a sponsored ad web site is a misuse of our trademark rights and cannot be tolerated.
Accordingly, we hereby request that you confirm to us that you will take immediate steps to cease this and any other unauthorized use of the BMW trademark, and in particular, that you have removed the BMW logo from your web site.
We would appreciate your reply by September 30, 2008 at the latest. Thank you for your cooperation.
Regards,
Aimee Gessner
__________________________________________
BMW Group
Aimee Gessner
Legal Counsel
Dept. of Trademarks, Designs, Intellectual Property Related Issues (AJ-35)
Tel: +49 89 382-30465
Fax: +49 89 382-33050
Mailing Address: BMW AG, Dept. AJ-35, 80788 Munich, Germany
Email: aimee.gessner@bmw.de
____________________________________________
Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft
Vorstand/Management Board: Norbert Reithofer (Vorsitzender/Chairman), Frank-Peter Arndt, Ernst Baumann, Herbert Diess, Klaus Draeger, Friedrich Eichiner, Michael Ganal, Ian Robertson
Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender/Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Joachim Milberg
Sitz und Registergericht/Registered Office and Register Court: München HRB 42243
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