Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

[mtVessel]

IANAL, but isn't it incumbent upon IKEA to issue a C&D, whether they want to or not, in order to show they are actively using their trademark?

From what I've heard, if they didn't, someone else might have a case that their trademark is open to use.

[michaelhoffman]

It's incumbent on IKEA to police unauthorized use of their trademark somehow, but that doesn't have to mean that they must start by sending a nasty letter. When Jack Daniels thought their trademark was being infringed, they started by sending a nice letter simply asking the infringer to stop.

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/07/cease-and-desist-letter-of-th...

Another way to deal with unauthorized use of a trademark is to authorize it. So IKEA could have started with a letter asking IKEA Hackers suggesting a potential agreement and a nominal fee. An imperative cease and desist letter isn't required.

[pessimizer]

To use the Ikea trademark when referring to Ikea brand products doesn't dilute the mark.

[aragot]

It's in their right to be assholes too. Most probably, they wont't because it's a bad way to do business.

> If they didn't, someone else might have a case

They could have just licensed their trademark to the website for a non-null sum of money.

[gonzo]

Nominative use is allowed. (You can think of this as a trademark analog of "fair use" in Copyright.)

[nodata]

What will happen next?

They will make the "IKEA Hackers" logo look less like the official IKEA logo, and they'll put a big "not an official IKEA site" banner on each page. My guess.

[Udo]

That's my guess as well. That would have been the solution to go with from the start - putting in a simple disclaimer along the lines of "not affiliated with IKEA in any way". It's what I would have done if IkeaHackers was my site.

If I was an Ikea exec though, I'd additionally suggest a partnership with the site. Displaying Ikea ads and creating a funnel from individual articles to Ikea's order form would be a great idea to benefit both the site and Ikea financially. Not that Ikea needs it, but it's still good business sense.

However, we don't know what they'll come up with. It's a giant corporation so pretty much anything is possible and it's probably too early to get your hopes up.

[giarc]

I can't tell what's an ad and what is content on that site.

[cake]

No shit, IKEA should hire this person just for the free marketing that it constitutes.

[thisjepisje]

So the cease & desist letter could've been just an over-enthousiastic legal employee?

[lnanek2]

Not sure I would call it over-enthusiastic. If you don't protect your trademark, you lose it. It's is probably standing orders for the legal team to do that.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Given the obvious benefits TO Ikea of ikeahackers.net, it seems likely that it was an overzealous legal department move to "protect" the trademark. It's easy to forget how many people there are in a company like Ikea, and the fact that not every trademark cease-and-desist gets vetted by the people who run the company.

The thing is they should be able to protect it by simply "licensing" it to the guy who runs ikeahackers.net and charging him an "undisclosed sum" for the license (a dollar should make it legal, though IANAL).

[underwater]

In the original post, he said that they allowed him to use the "IKEA" name as long as he removed ads from the site. Considering the ugly banners down the side of this page -- which are for competitors of IKEA -- this seems pretty reasonable.

[jeroen]

girl, not guy.

[Tepix]

Ikea is evil, plain and simple. I'm boycotting them.

[rqebmm]

This is perhaps a bit overzealous, but for those who aren't aware, IKEA does have a dubiously legal corporate structure: http://www.economist.com/node/6919139