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Comment by tom_rath | Hacker News Reader

Is that really Get Satisfaction's doing, or was it a 37signals fanboy who put that together without permission?

Snagging the look-and-feel (graphics, colours, etc.) of a target's site is particularly sleazy and it seems very odd if Get Satisfaction has chosen to go that route for their business.

Unless Get Satisfaction provides a prominent "request this forum be deleted" link, and actually removes a forum on request, I wouldn't touch these guys with the proverbial 10' pole if site mimicking has become their standard practice.

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It should be noted that the look and feel is the same (except for logos) for every company. See, http://getsatisfaction.com/comcast for example.

Yes, I would say that they have a similar L & F and color scheme as 37 Signals, but I would not go so far as to say it is "ripped off."

Taking the logos without permission is bad enough.

Why should companies be able to "delete" 3rd party forums where people discuss their products and help each other?

If someone asks a question on Stack Overflow about using Visual Studio, should Microsoft be able to delete it? Should they be able to sue SO? Should SO not be able to run ads for products that compete with VS?

They clearly shouldn't be able to stifle online discussions about products. Under US trademark law, the right to use trademarks you don't own for purposes of commentary or criticism is specifically carved out.

But that's a red herring. The relevant complaint for this branch of the discussion is that GS wound up sponsoring a website that was clearly and evidently confusing to the public. They ran that site for commercial gain, and in multiple ways made appeals to 37signals for payment to gain more control over that site. None of that is kosher.

I don't think there's any problem with third-parties putting together support forums, Q&A pages or the like. It's when they snatch the look-and-feel of a company's site to try and pass themselves off as an official part of that company (without permission!) which sends my alarm bells ringing.

Yep, look-and-feel is protected as part of a company's intellectual property. As it should be.

You're technically right. For reference, look and feel fall under "trade dress" [http://www.ivanhoffman.com/tradedress.html]. In brief, the relevant case law is:

"To recover for trade dress infringement ... a plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) that its trade dress has obtained “secondary meaning” in the marketplace; (2) that the trade dress of the two competing products is confusingly similar; and (3) that the appropriated features of the trade dress are primarily nonfunctional."

Continuing ...

"Strength of ... trade dress depends upon the interplay of two elements, the uniqueness of the trade dress and the investment in imbuing a trade dress with secondary meaning."

... which makes trade dress difficult to prove, even to only a preponderance of the evidence.

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