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Blogger warned to delete Avis logo |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Monday, 12 November 2007 |
Eric Turkewitz, a lawyer who writes a personal injury blog, was told by Avis's lawyers to take down the picture of the Avis's logo due to trademark issues.
This was due to a recent post in which he discussed a ruling on the constitutionality of car rental firm immunity from some kinds of negligence suits where he illustrated the story with pictures of the logos of leading firms Hertz and Avis.
According to Out-Law.com, Fred Grumman, associate general counsel at Avis, said
We have the greatest respect for your right to express your opinions on your blog, but that does not include the right to use Avis' trademark as you have done in this particular piece. He goes on to say,
Understandably, trademark law is not within your area of expertise. Therefore, we trust that this was done out of ignorance and not based on an intent to misuse our mark to the benefit of your personal injury practice. We ask that you remove it immediately and refrain from any similar use in the future. I do not believe what Eric did was actually a trademark infringement or issue. It was not in the course of trade nor was it a 'trademark use'. It is definately not passing off either.
If using a logo in a blog post amounts to trademark infringement then there are a lot of bloggers out there that are infringing. If anything, it might be a copyright infringement rather than a trademark infringement.
Are they going to threaten me to remove their logo too? I hope not but I would like to hear their reasoning behind it.
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