Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman

Re:Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman by jMyles on Friday November 22, 2019 @02:59PM (#21609441)

So you are saying that you think that "Postman" declining to pursue legal action against "Postwoman" might lead to a court deciding that "Postman" is a generic mark - do I have that correct?

Can you point to a case even vaguely close to this fact pattern?

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Re:Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman by jsgo on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:58PM (#21610003)

>So you are saying that you think that "Postman" declining to pursue legal action against "Postwoman" might lead to a court deciding that "Postman" is a generic mark

Per this posting from a law firm [1], as your question is stated with the inclusion of "might" the answer is yes. Apparently it can go one of three ways: abandoning, not impacting/abandoning, or diminishing. Two of these results are bad for the trademark holder.

I'd assume a C&D letter would be sufficient to get a proper result or at least should be the first move in these matters, but I'm not a lawyer nor play one on TV or online.

[1] https://www.dbllawyers.com/can-lose-trademark-rights-dont-su...

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Re:Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman by legitster on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:20PM (#21609621)

There are tons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

You don't necessarily need to sue competitors for being misleading, but you do generally have to show you are trying to defend your trademarks and a lawsuit is a nice expensive papertrail.

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Re:Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman by jMyles on Friday November 22, 2019 @05:42PM (#21610884)

I assert that literally zero of these cases are even close to this one in terms of the degree of abandonment represented by failure to take action against Postwoman.

Can you specify a single one that you think is similar?

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Re:Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman by gatherhunterer on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:37PM (#21609797)

You could have made a simple search and found more confirmation than I could possibly provide. Even the USPTO has top-level search results to that effect.

https://www.google.com/search?q=failure%20to%20protect%20tra...

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Re:Postwoman – a free alternative to Postman by jMyles on Friday November 22, 2019 @05:42PM (#21610888)

Which of these cases specifically do you assert is similar to this one?

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