Two similarly-named companies are on a collision course.
The owner of FundMe.com has filed a lawsuit against personal fundraising site GoFundMe.com over the similarity of their names and trademarks, and a bit of nuance around types of crowfunding.
FundMe.com has a trademark related to business funding. GoFundMe is a site for personal or charitable crowdfnding.
Earlier this year, legal counsel for GoFundMe sent a cease & desist letter to FundMe.com regarding FundMe.com offering personal and charitable crowdfunding. Apparently someone copied a personal crowdfunding request from GoFundMe.com and put it on FundMe.com.
GoFundMe requested that FundMe.com stop offering personal crowdfunding services.
But once FundMe.com started researching GoFundMe’s arguments, it found that GoFundMe was apparently getting into the business crowdfunding space, which it believes infringes on its own trademark.
I’ve always thought GoFundMe.com was a horrible domain name choice. It looks like that’s coming to a head now.
You can view the lawsuit and cease & desist letter here.
Anthony says
They purchased gofund.com
Andrew Allemann says
Worth reading the lawsuit if you want to dig into it. It appears FundMe.com changed hands, and was perhaps offered for sale previously and GoFundMe.com passed on it.
Joseph Peterson says
Choosing a name isn’t just about picking an identity and finding a suitable domain. It also involves minimizing risks. From that standpoint, GoFundMe.com looks like a bad idea.
Andrew Allemann says
I’ve never liked how it’s two verbs in a row.
Joseph Peterson says
Me neither. Also seems like the wrong direction – GoFundMe instead of ComeFundMe? Shouldn’t we be in this together?
Phrases with “me” would normally lead toward – as in “Come catch me” or “Come see me”. Phrases without “me” involved (e.g. “Go get help” and “Go F%&! yourself”) lead away.
Sending somebody away can sound dismissive, helpless, or lazy.
Andrew Allemann says
Agreed!
thelegendaryjp says
@Andrew…. GoBlogMe
Andrew Allemann says
🙂
Steve says
This will be an interesting case to watch.
If I recall, GoFundMe used to be called “StartAFund” or “LaunchAFund”. I know the 2 founders sold the company or the majority of the company to either Accel Partners or Sequoia for over $500 million last year.
It’s a really popular platform, especially with millennials. It’s raised over $1 Billion in crowdfunding. They even have real-time gofundme.com funding — paying for Uber, rent, flights, vacations, groceries, night club bills. It’s a cash cow — much more active than Kickstater and IndieGoGo. And of course, its platform has been used by veterans and people with cancer. I know a few cancer patients who had their treatments at Sloan funded via GoFundMe.
I like the phrase GoFundMe — it’s catchy, casual. Fundme sounds aggressive – imperative. PleaseFundMe sounds desperate, begging.
Looks like another case of David (FundMe) vs Goliath (GoFundMe).
We shall see.
Joseph Peterson says
I can see what you mean about “Go” softening the imperative of “Fund Me!” More casual, a you say. And “Please Fund Me” sounds sniveling.
They’re a big operation, and familiarity tends to make brand names seem more acceptable, less bizarre than they’d seem in a first impression. It can be very hard to preserve that sense of a first impression after we’re habituated to a brand name and have observed or interacted with the brand’s product / service offering. That’s 1 reason why corporate management often gets branding decisions wrong. They’re too close to their project to see it as an outsider (read: “potential customer”) would perceive it.
IP expert, domainer, entrepreneur and, ABOVE ALL, KNIGHT OF FREEDOM says
Well, welcome bastard fraudsters. Who? I don’t know, maybe be both, maybe lawyers, maybe PTOs’ examiners. Hoping not the judges.
This is exactly the BAD BEHAVIOR I have always spoken about, THE BASTARD BEHAVIOR that can bring someone to encounter very very very serious problems.
I dont’ know anything about this case, I do not even know anything about the owner of FundMe.com or even just his name, and I do not care at all about those points SIMPLY BECAUSE THE OWNER OF FundMe.com HAS ALL THE RIGHTS OF THIS WORLD TO RUN A CROWDFUNDING BUSINESS ON A NAME LIKE FundMe.com.
And at the same time he can not take advantage of this to claim exclusive rights on FundMe.com an go after similar names like GoFundMe.com. Maybe those are simply both fraudsters.
Simply BOTH THOSE NAMES ARE N O T TRADEMARKABLE SIGNS. THEY WILL CO-EXIST. P E R I O D.
FundMe.com is a sort of non plus ultra name for a crowdfunding business of course. It is one of the best name you can choose for a crowdfunding site (only FUND.ME could be considered at the same level), one of the few obvious best choices, something descriptive although it is also simply wonderful, one of the NON PLUS ULTRA NAME, so they tried to stop them with the most obvious simple bastard trick. A trick for babies who do not understand anything about intellectual property law. If those bastard fraudsters, let say for instance, do the same trick with a registrant who knows intellectual property as a laywer, they risk to face someone who could react in EVERY MANNER, because this is about B U S I N E S S F R E E D O M.
Both those trademarks have to be cancelled, periods, for all the activities related to financing, crowdfunding and similar products/services.
All the PTOs worldwide SHOULD STOP REGISTERING NAMES AS TRADEMARKS FOR PRODUCTS/SERVICES FOR WHICH THOSE SIGNS ARE GENERIC AND/OR DESCRIPTIVE. USPTO, OAMI AND WIPO IN PARTICULAR SHOULD STOP THAT BASTARD BEHAVIOR!
NO SECONDARY MEANING can arise from those names, NEVER EVER. PERIOD!
T H I S I S A M A T T E R O F P R I N C I P L E.
Be careful all you little baby fraudsters like the GoFundMe.com registrant and/or the FundMe.com registrants, etc. and all you little judges/arbitrators corrupted fraudsters: this is not a simple matters of ip law. If the fraudsters of GoFundMe.com will win this legal battle, it means a fraudster judge will have knock down another pillar of the IP law, doctrine and judicial interpretation. And the same if will win FundMe.com.
A pillar of FREEDOM, another pillar of FREEDOM IN BUSINESS, which is of course the first land on which freedom have to be defended.
Pillars knocked down are a risk for all: everyone can remain under the ruins, even those who ruined the society stealing to it THE FREEDOM.
FundMe.com and GoFundMe.com are two names that can not stop each others, because both are generic and descriptive for any products and services related to financial and crowdfunding activities.
PTOs HAVE TO STOP REGISTERING MARKS THAT DO NOT HAVE THE DISTINCTIVE REQUIREMENTS!!!
S T O P DOING IT!!!
STOP REGISTERING THOSE GENERIC AND/OR DESCRIPTIVE NAMES!!!
OF COURSE STOPPING IS NOT ENOUGH, YOU MUST GO BACK.
PERIOD.