Punkster and Goliath

My business partner's mom sent us a picture from a magazine or catalog or something. . .with a shirt of a littl girl wearing a really graphic black tee that said, 'I crawl the line' from hot topic!!!

WHAT????!?!?!? that is a punkster original phrase. that came out of my brain, that was my answer to the fact that i couldnt use johnny cash (the name) on a shirt because of trademarks and such. . .so i wanted to give a little ode to johnny and thought and thought and then , lightbulb! I crawl the line came in my head.

i had no idea it would be punkster's runaway hit! its our new hit, getting us tons of love, press, orders. and this was my idea. and now, over a year later, since we started showing this shirt to the public at tradeshows - hot topic a huge corporation stole our idea and is consequently stealing our orders. . .they are a big dog to deal with too.

i mean, hello! hot topic, GET YOUR OWN IDEAS! you have a big staff over there, get your own creativity going on.

so whats a small company to do? send them a letter from our lawyer telling them to stop selling it? sue them for the money they made off my brain?

can we even do that? do we have the money for the lawyer fees? do we have any rights to our own ideas as soon as we show it to the world? its just not really fair. its not right, these big companies steal the little guys ideas all the time, all the time. and what rights do we have against them?

originally my lawyer said we have some rights if we prove that we were using the idea to make profit, but its also a hard fight in court.

im emailing a lawyer i read an article from in entrepreneur magazine, and ill get back to you to see what he says. this is a big problem, this is david and goliath style. but you know what, im really not that afraid, and i feel like its our duty to not let the giants mess with us.

course. . ..i am not sure i have the right battle gear. . .but all i really need is a slingshot right? anyone have a sling shot?

-leanne ford

Comments

[Cool Sofa]

You're concept and slogans are so novel that I'm surprised they haven't been ripped off sooner. It sucks that they have such a large Goliath-like merchandising machine but to your advantage it took them over a year to get their knock-off on the shelf.

Legal fights require a whole different set munitions. Your slingshot is your noodle. That's what started this whole thing in the first place. You just have to keep creating and let them play catch up.

On the business side, reward your customers for their loyalty. Keep a good list and recruit your best customers in the fight.

Everyone loves an underdog :-D

[suzy q]

ahhhhhhh, bummer!
yes, this is the big prob. when dealing in phrases.
i think they have to be trademarked in order to be owned and i'm pretty sure it is expensive... which is why when one small biz comes up with something catchy like "ipood", "lock up your daughters" etc. you quickly see lots of copys by different companies.
but it definitely hurts more when it comes from a larger company like Hot Topics, target, wal-mart...
the truly cool will buy from you because they know that's where they saw it first. best of luck
running a small biz is definitely not easy!