9 ms·

How I Got Fired from the Job I Invented

296 points by citricsquid 13y ago

mariusz331 13y ago
It's funny watching the twitter feed on Adecco's website: https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world
e3pi 13y ago
Great introduction and images, you worked hard on this! Get any lawyer and kick their billionairism ass five ways to Sunday for $$$treble$$$ psychotic grief damages. Site shows they ruined you. So an effective cease and and desist letter. Prepare to doubly rebutt these criminal butts' rebuttal: how-to-write-a-great-response-to-a-cease-and-desist-letter into: =====> how-to-write-an-overwhelmingly-terrifying-cease-and-desist-letter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5907732 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5907732 http://abovethelaw.com/2013/06/how-to-write-a-great-response-to-a-cease-and-desist-letter http://abovethelaw.com/2013/06/how-to-write-a-great-response...
- sk5t 13y ago
  This comment reads like a Dr. Bronner's soap label.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    I never heard of that man or the soap before, and this made my day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner The label in all its glory: http://all-one-typography.com/ http://all-one-typography.com/
    - mikeash 13y ago
      I feel obligated to note that the soap is as great as the label is crazy. As a bonus, you have something entertaining to read if you ever get bored in the shower.
      - subpixel 13y ago
        Also this: http://magicsoapbox.com/?page_id=12 http://magicsoapbox.com/?page_id=12
      - Aloha 13y ago
        ^^^ This! I love the soap, and the label is crazy, so was the man.
      - ImprovedSilence 13y ago
        haha indeed. I've been using it for camping/backpacking for as long as I could remember.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  He won't get any damages because he didn't file a trademark application of his own first. All he can do is obstruct the trademark being granted to them instead, then file his own application. The end.
chrisvineup 13y ago
Site is down...
SpikedCola 13y ago
Not down, but 403'd. Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundtheworldin80jobs.com%2Fhow-i-got-fired-from-the-job-i-invented%2F http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundt...
- pathy 13y ago
  Perhaps Adecco/PR firm reached out to the author, to solve the matter. Or that is what we can hope at least. The site appears to be password protected now so something definitely happened. Or the site just got overloaded and the author decided to pull the plug.
  - paulgb 13y ago
    The whole site is down, which makes me wonder if they exceeded their bandwidth due to coverage of this. If so, at least the story is getting attention. Another possibility is that they were advised by council to take it down, but it does no good to speculate.
    - johnduhart 13y ago
      "website is still being worked on. Stay tuned." https://twitter.com/80worldjobs/status/348094066929590272 https://twitter.com/80worldjobs/status/348094066929590272
- jsdalton 13y ago
  > Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. My guess is that the page is in fact down (probably MySQL is stopped), but that the permissions on the 500 error page are set wrong and thus Apache is returning a 403 as it tries to show the error page, instead of a 500.
pathy 13y ago
As far as I can tell the agency responsible for the campaign is Mortierbrigade [1]. I haven't been able to confirm it for sure but the original source [2] I found it for seems to be quite knowledge about the Belgian advertising scene. Adecco's/Mortierbrigade attempts to defend themselves on Facebook have been rather halfhearted so far.[3] [1]: http://mortierbrigade.com http://mortierbrigade.com [2]: http://creativecriminals.com/online/adecco-way-to-work/ http://creativecriminals.com/online/adecco-way-to-work/ [3]: https://www.facebook.com/AdeccoWayToWork/posts/558812724161752 https://www.facebook.com/AdeccoWayToWork/posts/5588127241617...
- future_grad 13y ago
  I find nothing capturing about a European hipster running around the world trying out jobs. Especially when I add in the thought that the idea was so clearly jacked from someone else.
  - workbench 13y ago
    Unfortunately thats what a large number of ad agencies spend their time doing. Selling ideas they see online off to brands without contacting or paying the original creator
    - objclxt 13y ago
      On the other side of the fence: a lot of the time clients will actually send stuff they've seen online to their ad agencies and ask for it to be 'repurposed'. It happens both ways.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        Clients are expected to have no idea what they're doing. That's why they hired the experts, where such behavior is no longer dumb but disgusting.
- Udo 13y ago
  Halfhearted is a charitable way to put it. They made it clear that they see nothing wrong with this in principle, they act as if it's all an accidental naming collision, and they start right out of the gate with the old "we're sorry some people are upset" non-apology.
Ashuu 13y ago
"401 Authorization Required" What is username and password?
withad 13y ago
It seems like every other issue of Private Eye has something almost exactly like this in their Ad Nauseum column. A lot of marketing companies are stealing ideas from old viral videos and art projects.
- mpclark 13y ago
  I wonder if this is due to the age boundary between old farts and digital natives. A young YouTube-aware creative could easily filch ideas knowing there's a good chance that the senior suits who will sign off the campaign will likely never have come across the source. (In fact, my teenage kids also do this to me all the time, but I read rather more of Reddit than they suspect)
davewicket 13y ago
Trying to "post" a "link"?
hochiwa 13y ago
Hilarious watching the live twitter feed on their (adecco's) homepage.
edent 13y ago
While the site is down, you can watch the author talk about this on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjPP6fgpkTE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjPP6fgpkTE
- BWStearns 13y ago
  You can also go downvote Adecco's ripped off video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpvBfGUeaZs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpvBfGUeaZs
  - rexreed 13y ago
    It's down now. Not because they regret making the video. Oh no, they don't have that sense of regret quite yet. It's down because they can't handle the velocity and fierceness of the negative comments.
spdy 13y ago
The internet is a funny place a guy with no real traction on his project (sadly because his idea sounds great ). 68 subscribers 16,535 views Youtube 2,2k Twitter just has to reach out to the right channels reddit/twitter/fb to start a PR disaster for a Adecco. Around the world in 80 (days/jobs/parties/x) Lets see how they will turn it around, they got bitten by a mistake of not doing enough market research.
- bconway 13y ago
  they got bitten by a mistake of not doing enough market research Alternatively, they don't see it as a mistake at all (as you pointed out, a whopping 68 subscribers) and did the math and decided to go with it.
matthuggins 13y ago
Google cache mirror: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundtheworldin80jobs.com/how-i-got-fired-from-the-job-i-invented/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundt...
nanidin 13y ago
This was on reddit last night - I can't access the article, but the people in the comments on the reddit thread were having massive misconceptions about trademark vs copyright. Also, anyone can put TM next to something - it doesn't mean they trademarked it. It's the (R) that means you actually put forth effort to trademark something.
Netbeing 13y ago
Amusing: Adecco's website has a live twitter feed widget on it. And it's a constant stream of tweets ripping on Adecco for this.
- loceng 13y ago
  They must have turned that off now?
  - acoyfellow 13y ago
    As of 2:03pm EST- no. They are getting destroyed (rightfully so).
    - ashleyblackmore 13y ago
      It's still up
  - austinl 13y ago
    It's still on: https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world
- kamjam 13y ago
  That's brilliant. One of the business development guys I work for was showing me a company that aggregates social media feeds for integration into your website, I asked how these get filtered, "no, they just get everything". Never understood why you want something displayed on your website you have NO control over! This will be a good case study to present :)
Arnor 13y ago
It blows my mind that http://www.adecco.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx http://www.adecco.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx is up today...
pessimizer 13y ago
I'm surprised that anyone can get a trademark on "Around the World in 80 Xs." I would think that you'd have to get "Around the World in 80 Dishes with Slavko Slobovich" or "John Johnson's Around the World in 80 Trees." Maybe changing the number of Xs or going "Around the Channel Islands" or something. I would think anything built on the bare single variable snowclone would be too cliche to be exclusive.
spacecowboy 13y ago
Sounds like an opportunity for Turner to use this situation and the attention this can generate to amplify his own idea, brand and work.
loceng 13y ago
If he used "Around the world in 80 jobs" prior to their use, they shouldn't have received a trademark.
- mcherm 13y ago
  That's not how trademark works.
  - Retric 13y ago
    It depends, you can win a trademark dispute if you have been using the mark for a sufficent period before someone else registers it. Assuming that a trademark qualifies for protection, rights to a trademark can be acquired in one of two ways: (1) by being the first to use the mark in commerce; or (2) by being the first to register the mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO"). http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm
- rexreed 13y ago
  A (TM) mark is an indication of a trademark claim, not an actual registered trademark which would be (R). Clearly, it's not a particularly defensible claim as there's identifiable prior usage. You don't even need to register a trademark to have common law rights. In the US at least.
jsavimbi 13y ago
Paging Mr. Best...to the red courtesy phone, Mr. Pete Best, red courtesy phone please. Guy comes up with the idea to blog about the concept of working his way around the world. Neither is a novel concept. People have been travelling the world whilst working since times immemorial. People have also been blogging about their experiences lives since, well, times immemorial. See: Herodotus. Also, he apparently didn't do any fancy legal footwork prior to creating his brand, image and web persona that would enable him to protect his work in the future. Sucks to be him. Again, nothing novel about any of this. That he did well enough to convince some sketchball employment agency to use his concept in their promotional work is a measure of success and well, that's probably the pinnacle of his for this particular project. Maybe it's time that he invest his energies into something will a higher barrier to entry.
sigkill 13y ago
Apparently their reaction page is up - http://www.adecco.com/en-US/Media/Pages/reaction.aspx http://www.adecco.com/en-US/Media/Pages/reaction.aspx
- stitchy 13y ago
  "We’re sorry for some recent negative comments." What a poorly written reaction.
  - antinitro 13y ago
    "We've worked to resolve this and to create a mutually beneficial solution" - well, go on, what is it!?
  - meowface 13y ago
    This is about as bad as "I'm sorry you feel that way." It's the complete opposite of an apology.
- rexreed 13y ago
  That's a pretty lame (and tone deaf) response. Not only will it do little to dampen the Internet Furies, but it will probably just make it worse. They need to make it right with Turner ASAP in a public manner. Otherwise, Hell Hath No Fury like an Internet Scorned.
- jere 13y ago
  Was this written by a robot?
- Uperte 13y ago
  Sounds like: We are sorry we got caught.
jamespollack 13y ago
the twitter feed on the ripoff homepage is priceless right now :)
mark-r 13y ago
I hate to be a downer, but this is why Trademark law was invented. If you don't or can't get a trademark on your brand, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time, money, and energy promoting it. There are a lot of slimy people in the world, and if you aren't protected eventually one of them will take advantage. Even a trademark might not stop it, but it gives you some ammo to fight back.
- rexreed 13y ago
  You don't lose trademark rights just because someone else files a trademark on a name you're already using in commerce prior to that registration. In fact, trademark rights are common law rights -- you don't need to file a trademark to claim a priority right to that mark. In this case, his prior usage trumps any attempt for Adecco to claim ownership on the mark for their subsequent usage -- no matter how much they try to register those rights with the government. A trademark registration is exactly what it sounds like a - registration of a mark with the government. It doesn't give you any rights to ownership over a mark that pre-existed the registration.
  - comrade1 13y ago
    You're confusing copyright and trademark. If he didn't challenge the trademark registration in the required period he will have a nearly impossible time challenging it now.
    - rexreed 13y ago
      You don't lose rights to a pre-existing mark, even if someone subsequently registers it. And a challenge is only valid during an opposition period for a registered mark. This mark is not yet registered! So yes, he could challenge it during opposition. As indicated by the USPTO TESS Database, the mark was filed on April 9, 2013, but it hasn't even been processed, let alone registered by the US PTO [5]. This means that the opposition period hasn't come yet. That means that oh yes sirree, Turner definitely has a chance to oppose this mark! And oppose he will. And win he will. So, nothing lost here. A TM symbol confers no rights to the claimant other than common law rights, which Turner has a pre-existing claim on. But he wouldn't even need to challenge it - a subsequent registration does not entitle ownership for pre-existing marks. See all the citations below [1-4] [1] http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html [2] http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426712 http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426712 [3] http://tcattorney.typepad.com/ip/2008/06/what-are-common.html http://tcattorney.typepad.com/ip/2008/06/what-are-common.htm... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Enforcing_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Enforcing_rights [5] http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:jyex1k.2.1 http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:jyex1k...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Zaephyr 13y ago
FWIW, and it's different from trademark, the Addeco.com website is showing "© 2011 Adecco" At least they are consistently not paying attention to details.
munger 13y ago
Let Adecco know how you feel in their contact form too should you feel so inspired (keep it civil though) https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/contact https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/contact I just put one through, feels good.

296 points by citricsquid 13y ago

It's funny watching the twitter feed on Adecco's website: https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world

e3pi 13y ago

Great introduction and images, you worked hard on this! Get any lawyer and kick their billionairism ass five ways to Sunday for $$$treble$$$ psychotic grief damages. Site shows they ruined you. So an effective cease and and desist letter. Prepare to doubly rebutt these criminal butts' rebuttal: how-to-write-a-great-response-to-a-cease-and-desist-letter into: =====> how-to-write-an-overwhelmingly-terrifying-cease-and-desist-letter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5907732 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5907732 http://abovethelaw.com/2013/06/how-to-write-a-great-response-to-a-cease-and-desist-letter http://abovethelaw.com/2013/06/how-to-write-a-great-response...

sk5t 13y ago
This comment reads like a Dr. Bronner's soap label.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  I never heard of that man or the soap before, and this made my day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner The label in all its glory: http://all-one-typography.com/ http://all-one-typography.com/
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I feel obligated to note that the soap is as great as the label is crazy. As a bonus, you have something entertaining to read if you ever get bored in the shower.
    - subpixel 13y ago
      Also this: http://magicsoapbox.com/?page_id=12 http://magicsoapbox.com/?page_id=12
    - Aloha 13y ago
      ^^^ This! I love the soap, and the label is crazy, so was the man.
    - ImprovedSilence 13y ago
      haha indeed. I've been using it for camping/backpacking for as long as I could remember.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 13y ago
He won't get any damages because he didn't file a trademark application of his own first. All he can do is obstruct the trademark being granted to them instead, then file his own application. The end.

chrisvineup 13y ago

Site is down...

SpikedCola 13y ago

Not down, but 403'd. Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundtheworldin80jobs.com%2Fhow-i-got-fired-from-the-job-i-invented%2F http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundt...

pathy 13y ago
Perhaps Adecco/PR firm reached out to the author, to solve the matter. Or that is what we can hope at least. The site appears to be password protected now so something definitely happened. Or the site just got overloaded and the author decided to pull the plug.
- paulgb 13y ago
  The whole site is down, which makes me wonder if they exceeded their bandwidth due to coverage of this. If so, at least the story is getting attention. Another possibility is that they were advised by council to take it down, but it does no good to speculate.
  - johnduhart 13y ago
    "website is still being worked on. Stay tuned." https://twitter.com/80worldjobs/status/348094066929590272 https://twitter.com/80worldjobs/status/348094066929590272
jsdalton 13y ago
> Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. My guess is that the page is in fact down (probably MySQL is stopped), but that the permissions on the 500 error page are set wrong and thus Apache is returning a 403 as it tries to show the error page, instead of a 500.

pathy 13y ago

As far as I can tell the agency responsible for the campaign is Mortierbrigade [1]. I haven't been able to confirm it for sure but the original source [2] I found it for seems to be quite knowledge about the Belgian advertising scene. Adecco's/Mortierbrigade attempts to defend themselves on Facebook have been rather halfhearted so far.[3] [1]: http://mortierbrigade.com http://mortierbrigade.com [2]: http://creativecriminals.com/online/adecco-way-to-work/ http://creativecriminals.com/online/adecco-way-to-work/ [3]: https://www.facebook.com/AdeccoWayToWork/posts/558812724161752 https://www.facebook.com/AdeccoWayToWork/posts/5588127241617...

future_grad 13y ago
I find nothing capturing about a European hipster running around the world trying out jobs. Especially when I add in the thought that the idea was so clearly jacked from someone else.
- workbench 13y ago
  Unfortunately thats what a large number of ad agencies spend their time doing. Selling ideas they see online off to brands without contacting or paying the original creator
  - objclxt 13y ago
    On the other side of the fence: a lot of the time clients will actually send stuff they've seen online to their ad agencies and ask for it to be 'repurposed'. It happens both ways.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      Clients are expected to have no idea what they're doing. That's why they hired the experts, where such behavior is no longer dumb but disgusting.
Udo 13y ago
Halfhearted is a charitable way to put it. They made it clear that they see nothing wrong with this in principle, they act as if it's all an accidental naming collision, and they start right out of the gate with the old "we're sorry some people are upset" non-apology.

Ashuu 13y ago

"401 Authorization Required" What is username and password?

withad 13y ago

It seems like every other issue of Private Eye has something almost exactly like this in their Ad Nauseum column. A lot of marketing companies are stealing ideas from old viral videos and art projects.

mpclark 13y ago
I wonder if this is due to the age boundary between old farts and digital natives. A young YouTube-aware creative could easily filch ideas knowing there's a good chance that the senior suits who will sign off the campaign will likely never have come across the source. (In fact, my teenage kids also do this to me all the time, but I read rather more of Reddit than they suspect)

davewicket 13y ago

Trying to "post" a "link"?

hochiwa 13y ago

Hilarious watching the live twitter feed on their (adecco's) homepage.

edent 13y ago

While the site is down, you can watch the author talk about this on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjPP6fgpkTE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjPP6fgpkTE

BWStearns 13y ago
You can also go downvote Adecco's ripped off video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpvBfGUeaZs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpvBfGUeaZs
- rexreed 13y ago
  It's down now. Not because they regret making the video. Oh no, they don't have that sense of regret quite yet. It's down because they can't handle the velocity and fierceness of the negative comments.

spdy 13y ago

The internet is a funny place a guy with no real traction on his project (sadly because his idea sounds great ). 68 subscribers 16,535 views Youtube 2,2k Twitter just has to reach out to the right channels reddit/twitter/fb to start a PR disaster for a Adecco. Around the world in 80 (days/jobs/parties/x) Lets see how they will turn it around, they got bitten by a mistake of not doing enough market research.

bconway 13y ago
they got bitten by a mistake of not doing enough market research Alternatively, they don't see it as a mistake at all (as you pointed out, a whopping 68 subscribers) and did the math and decided to go with it.

matthuggins 13y ago

Google cache mirror: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundtheworldin80jobs.com/how-i-got-fired-from-the-job-i-invented/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aroundt...

nanidin 13y ago

This was on reddit last night - I can't access the article, but the people in the comments on the reddit thread were having massive misconceptions about trademark vs copyright. Also, anyone can put TM next to something - it doesn't mean they trademarked it. It's the (R) that means you actually put forth effort to trademark something.

Netbeing 13y ago

Amusing: Adecco's website has a live twitter feed widget on it. And it's a constant stream of tweets ripping on Adecco for this.

loceng 13y ago
They must have turned that off now?
- acoyfellow 13y ago
  As of 2:03pm EST- no. They are getting destroyed (rightfully so).
  - ashleyblackmore 13y ago
    It's still up
- austinl 13y ago
  It's still on: https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/around-the-world
kamjam 13y ago
That's brilliant. One of the business development guys I work for was showing me a company that aggregates social media feeds for integration into your website, I asked how these get filtered, "no, they just get everything". Never understood why you want something displayed on your website you have NO control over! This will be a good case study to present :)

Arnor 13y ago

It blows my mind that http://www.adecco.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx http://www.adecco.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx is up today...

pessimizer 13y ago

I'm surprised that anyone can get a trademark on "Around the World in 80 Xs." I would think that you'd have to get "Around the World in 80 Dishes with Slavko Slobovich" or "John Johnson's Around the World in 80 Trees." Maybe changing the number of Xs or going "Around the Channel Islands" or something. I would think anything built on the bare single variable snowclone would be too cliche to be exclusive.

spacecowboy 13y ago

Sounds like an opportunity for Turner to use this situation and the attention this can generate to amplify his own idea, brand and work.

loceng 13y ago

If he used "Around the world in 80 jobs" prior to their use, they shouldn't have received a trademark.

mcherm 13y ago
That's not how trademark works.
- Retric 13y ago
  It depends, you can win a trademark dispute if you have been using the mark for a sufficent period before someone else registers it. Assuming that a trademark qualifies for protection, rights to a trademark can be acquired in one of two ways: (1) by being the first to use the mark in commerce; or (2) by being the first to register the mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO"). http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm
rexreed 13y ago
A (TM) mark is an indication of a trademark claim, not an actual registered trademark which would be (R). Clearly, it's not a particularly defensible claim as there's identifiable prior usage. You don't even need to register a trademark to have common law rights. In the US at least.

jsavimbi 13y ago

Paging Mr. Best...to the red courtesy phone, Mr. Pete Best, red courtesy phone please. Guy comes up with the idea to blog about the concept of working his way around the world. Neither is a novel concept. People have been travelling the world whilst working since times immemorial. People have also been blogging about their experiences lives since, well, times immemorial. See: Herodotus. Also, he apparently didn't do any fancy legal footwork prior to creating his brand, image and web persona that would enable him to protect his work in the future. Sucks to be him. Again, nothing novel about any of this. That he did well enough to convince some sketchball employment agency to use his concept in their promotional work is a measure of success and well, that's probably the pinnacle of his for this particular project. Maybe it's time that he invest his energies into something will a higher barrier to entry.

sigkill 13y ago

Apparently their reaction page is up - http://www.adecco.com/en-US/Media/Pages/reaction.aspx http://www.adecco.com/en-US/Media/Pages/reaction.aspx

stitchy 13y ago
"We’re sorry for some recent negative comments." What a poorly written reaction.
- antinitro 13y ago
  "We've worked to resolve this and to create a mutually beneficial solution" - well, go on, what is it!?
- meowface 13y ago
  This is about as bad as "I'm sorry you feel that way." It's the complete opposite of an apology.
rexreed 13y ago
That's a pretty lame (and tone deaf) response. Not only will it do little to dampen the Internet Furies, but it will probably just make it worse. They need to make it right with Turner ASAP in a public manner. Otherwise, Hell Hath No Fury like an Internet Scorned.
jere 13y ago
Was this written by a robot?
Uperte 13y ago
Sounds like: We are sorry we got caught.

jamespollack 13y ago

the twitter feed on the ripoff homepage is priceless right now :)

mark-r 13y ago

I hate to be a downer, but this is why Trademark law was invented. If you don't or can't get a trademark on your brand, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time, money, and energy promoting it. There are a lot of slimy people in the world, and if you aren't protected eventually one of them will take advantage. Even a trademark might not stop it, but it gives you some ammo to fight back.

rexreed 13y ago
You don't lose trademark rights just because someone else files a trademark on a name you're already using in commerce prior to that registration. In fact, trademark rights are common law rights -- you don't need to file a trademark to claim a priority right to that mark. In this case, his prior usage trumps any attempt for Adecco to claim ownership on the mark for their subsequent usage -- no matter how much they try to register those rights with the government. A trademark registration is exactly what it sounds like a - registration of a mark with the government. It doesn't give you any rights to ownership over a mark that pre-existed the registration.
- comrade1 13y ago
  You're confusing copyright and trademark. If he didn't challenge the trademark registration in the required period he will have a nearly impossible time challenging it now.
  - rexreed 13y ago
    You don't lose rights to a pre-existing mark, even if someone subsequently registers it. And a challenge is only valid during an opposition period for a registered mark. This mark is not yet registered! So yes, he could challenge it during opposition. As indicated by the USPTO TESS Database, the mark was filed on April 9, 2013, but it hasn't even been processed, let alone registered by the US PTO [5]. This means that the opposition period hasn't come yet. That means that oh yes sirree, Turner definitely has a chance to oppose this mark! And oppose he will. And win he will. So, nothing lost here. A TM symbol confers no rights to the claimant other than common law rights, which Turner has a pre-existing claim on. But he wouldn't even need to challenge it - a subsequent registration does not entitle ownership for pre-existing marks. See all the citations below [1-4] [1] http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html [2] http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426712 http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426712 [3] http://tcattorney.typepad.com/ip/2008/06/what-are-common.html http://tcattorney.typepad.com/ip/2008/06/what-are-common.htm... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Enforcing_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Enforcing_rights [5] http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:jyex1k.2.1 http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4808:jyex1k...

deleted 13y ago

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Zaephyr 13y ago

munger 13y ago

Let Adecco know how you feel in their contact form too should you feel so inspired (keep it civil though) https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/contact https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/contact I just put one through, feels good.