HP, the bully, is blocking Photo Works of
Temecula from using our company name on google
ads.
This is a summary of my problem as a warning
for all small businesses.
HP purchased the trademark photo works from
a American Greetings, from one of their closed
business called Seattle FilmWorks. History
of Seattle FilmWorks Shutterfly is a division
of HP.
Photo works of Temecula has been an established
photo lab since 1988.
From google
Hello Clara, Thanks for being patient with
me, while I escalated your concern with our
specialists. Clara, the specialists have got
back and I am sorry but they have got back
saying that you will not be allowed to use
the trademark term Photo Work. I understand
that you used the term first and registered
it as well. But we will have to monitor the
term as it is currently registered with us
by another advertiser. I am sorry but we will
not be able to do anything in this case.
If you do a trademark search for photo works
Search
tradmarks
You will find the following Word Mark PHOTOWORKS
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026
036 038. G & S: computer software for creating
multimedia presentations on personal computers
As you can see the trademark has nothing
to do with printing.
Seattle filmworks did register in 1992 for
the trademark Seattle Film Works for Goods
and Services IC 001. US 006 026. G & S: photographic
film.
As you can see above Seattle Film Works never
had a trademark for printing related services
for photo works.
I have been advertising with google adwords
since 2006.
I
found this at Phillps Givens Law Blog
1. Failure to prosecute infringers. I can
not tell you how important it is to prosecute
(prevent) trademark infringers from unlawfully
using your trademark. If you do not, your
trademark is considered weak. Furthermore,
if you take no action to prevent infringers
and their use of your trademark is overwhelming,
you can lose your trademark rights. Essentially,
your trademark will lose its uniqueness to
your product or service. I have never received
a notice from anyone regarding the use of
the word photo works. 2. Abandonment by non
use or change in the nature of goods or services
sold under the trademark. For example, you
register your trademark to uniquely identify
plumbing services. Subsequently, you stop
providing plumbing services and you now provide
medical testing services. However, you do
not change the trademark. The trademark originally
used to identify plumbing services can not
and will not identify medical testing services.
You must apply for and obtain a new trademark
to identify medical testing services. the
previous owners of the mark got a mark for
media software, and now HP, the bully, wants
to apply it to printing. They have changed
the trademark to printing, it is still media
software, which I believe it a product that
has been abandoned.
What can a small business, struggling to
stay in business, do to fight a bully. I don't
have the fund to legally fight HP, the bully,
but I can take my fight to the internet and
to the streets. And hopefully after reading
this you will think twice before buying HP
products.
