Hacker News Reader

Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

judge2020·

People can still find the business by searching "<businessname> repair shop" as well as possibly "repair ship <cityname>" but the issue is not being able to advertise on terms like "fix iphone 8" or "ifixit iphone".

View on HN

Not to be that guy, but why do you feel you are entitled to advertise on somebody else's trademark?

He's not advertising "on sombedoy else's trademark". He's advertising a business that offer third party repair services of a product name <trademark>. You are commenting on an article titled "Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows", so perhaps his feeling of "entitlement" is the topic of the article?

It's obviously an instance of fair use. Otherwise no indy auto repair shops could advertise, for example.

Where the problems come in is when the actual name of the business includes a third party trademark. Try calling your business "Joe's Cut-Rate Porsche Service" and you can expect a C&D order.

Yes, you'll likely get a C&D order, however that doesn't mean you'll lose. As an example, Ferrari a few years ago went after all the independent "Joe's Ferrari Service" type places in the US with C&Ds against them using Ferrari's name in their business name. Most of the shops banded together and all sent legal letters telling Ferrari to $%*# off as it was fair use. Ferrari backed off.

Good on them.

I'd probably be a bit nervous about taking my Ferrari to Joe's Ferrari Service though.

Free Market... and the fact Google allows it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com