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Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

twitvid.com Created : Mar 30 2008.

twitvid.io Created : May 12 2009.

I think it would be a mistake to ignore those facts, and according to http://venturebeat.com/2009/05/23/twitvidcom-lets-you-tweet-... they 'launched' within days of each other.

Also http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&...;

I'm no lawyer, but I think the launch is too close to award anyone anything. I'd expect you have to have a clear established customer base to claim they will be confused - not a couple of days usage.

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Trademark protection doesn't apply to names themselves, but to names used for particular purposes. You could start an apiary called Apple Honey Co, and you'd be fine. Start a computer company called Apple, though, and you'd be infringing Apple Computer's trademark.

The mere registration of a name means nothing.

Right. But surely you also have to be able to demonstrate that you have been active in that space for a while, and that people associate that name, in that space, with you. And, that the issue is causing widespread customer confusion.

I'm just skeptical that can be done when both services launched within days of each other. Seems like not enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions.

If bing.io had launched a few days before ms unveiled bing.com do you think they'd have a hope in hell?

True, but it does make it much easier to make the case that they registered the domain a year ago with the intent of launching that brand and have been working on the idea ever since, while we know that Twitvid.io just spent a few days throwing this together a couple weeks ago. Hardly an airtight case for trademark protection.

I'm not saying what they did is right, as it clearly isn't, but I agree with axod; Twitvid.io should just change their name and move on. They're going to fight a losing battle otherwise.

the domain twitvid.com was created earlier but may have been bought from the original owner just recently.

They didn't register the domain a year ago. They bought it from a squatter after Twitvid launched.

What I simply cannot understand, is why twitvid.io would launch, knowing that twitvid.com was out there. What did they think it would be used for? Selling flowers?

It's obvious that twitvid.com would become a competitor, and due to the service they both copied - twitpic.com - would look very similar to twitvid.io.

How do you guys know this?

Because (as I said in the post) the Twitvids also tried to buy twitvid.com from the guy who'd registered it, but couldn't afford his asking price.

Sorry for the ambiguity...I meant to say: how do you know that they bought it after Twitvid.io launched?

True, but that cuts both ways. Twitvid.io xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx see below xxxxxxxxxxxxx hasn't been in existence very long, so there is no way they can argue their domain is an established mark. Twitvid.com could point to the early registration (and possibly the date of their purchase of it) as evidence that they planned to move into this space and had to move up their launch schedule in response to twitvid.io.

Trademarks are quite different from copyright, where proof of authorship is all; given the relative youth of both sites, I wouldn't rely on a legal remedy if I were twitvid.io. If nothing else, one would have to ask whether the cost of defending the mark would exceed the cost to buyout the .com, and indeed if/why not this was budgeted for.

Just noticed that twitvid.com (not .io as I mistakenly noted above) actually has an active trademark application on the name Twitvid. Specifically, it's their parent eatlime.com, an existing video-sharing service that has done the filing. So I don't see much hope for twitvid.io leveraging their < 1 week launch advantage into a defensible trademark.

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