When I noticed a company had named their new Android app “Gaia GPS to Your Email” I was at first a little excited. I thought someone had made an app that hooked our GPS app into email functionality. Wouldn’t that be flattering!
However, after I checked out the app, I realized it had nothing to do with Gaia GPS at all, and that the names just happened to be similar.
So, next I sent an email asking them to change the name, and that was that, because people are generally nice and cool. The company changed the named to Genie GPS to your Email right away, and they even apologized for the mixup.
I just thought I’d take a moment and thank these guys on my blog, because they really could have ignored me and I wouldn’t have done a thing, Instead, they took a little time and found a new name, just because I asked, and because it was the right thing to do.
My takeaway from this is if you are ever thinking about getting aggressive with someone over a trademark, you shouldn’t immediately pay a lawyer to write a letter. I would hope that sending a personal email, devoid of threats and legalize, doesn’t do anything to endanger a trademark down the road, but I guess it wouldn’t surprise me.
Since it seems apropos, let me also close by saying that we’ve signed The Patent Pledge, and we hope you will too. Not that we haver any plans to file any patents, but I’m told that we’ll feel differently after we grow a tad more.