9/27/2006

Toyota Motors USA made it clear today that enthusiast sites with domain names containing any of their trademarks are not allowed. TundraSolutions, one of the largest Toyota Truck enthusiast sites was served with a cease and desist order by Toyota Motors USA and is now facing changes or being shut down. “Your business is not authorized to use the Tundra name or any other Toyota trademark” Since over 90 percent of the enthusiast sites on the Internet use some Toyota trademarks, does this mean the end of all forums? Has Toyota even considered the size of the backlash from sending cease and desist orders to hundreds of websites with thousands of members at each? Even ScionLife could end up in this crossfire that has already engulfed almost 73,000 members at TundraSolutions. With roughly a week to respond we’ll have to just wait and see what happens with TS and the final opinion of those 73K members about Toyota Motors USA.

 

Crazy!

Kinda dumb though... There's a lot of forums and websites using car names, among other things.

-THE DON

 

wow thats one hell of an awful PR decision on toyota's part. sites like SL help their business.

 

werd

 

itll be hell to pay on their end...i know ive always seen toyota with a warm hello and willingness to make their customer first. and if we cant enjoy a website with scion in it, are we not allowed to say the brand of our car or write it in a school paper? we may as well ban the whole brand in that case.....ridiculous.

 

Just choose a name that doesn't involve the trademark. Not all that hard to do.

Toyota has every right to do this under trademark law, I don't see what the surprise or outrage is about.

You can have any name that doesn't use the marks and just always follow up with a identifying byline. "Potrzebieville: The #1 Toyota Scion Enthusiast Site on the Internet."

If you want to be known as an enthusiast site with your own identity, and not a corporate site, why use someone else's mark in your name?

It seems that TundraSolutions oversteeped the line by getting into the business of offering customer leads.

Toyota already expressly permits enthusiast sites with a .org extension, and the trademark issue comes into play when you get into competing commerce.

Really, if you're going to do business with a trademark in your name, you better be on solid legal footing, or get ready to pay out.

I read TundraSolutions release on the PR wire, it's pretty obvious to me they are involved in commerce.

 

regardless of the legal issues toyota has never pursued this type of action before. They should be considering that even other companies selling more parts for their vehicles increases interest in toyotas vehicles.

The negative press quickly negates any benefits toyota received from such a site. Really disappointing. And why is it that scionlife has never come against this problem? There's no disclaimer saying this site is not part of toyota motors USA therefore, I wonder if scionlife took over as scions official forum because scionworld was such a flop. Also in regards to the commerce under a toyota trademark, this site is no different. if anything SL does more $$ in ads, memberships and store sales than TS. Those on TS stated the supposed 'selling of leads' is complete BS because they received no $ at all from helping people to buy a car.

 

One of the problems legally is that if you don't challenge the unauthorized use of your trademarks you will eventually loose them. Kind of like squatters rights.

 

Threatening negative action for enforcing a trademark is pointless and probably backfire if the case is strong for competing business action.

TundraSolutions being involved in commerce is not BS the owner admits it he is doing business on his site. The business involves Toyota cars, and he has named his site using a Toyota mark. What more can be said?

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/9/prweb431356.htm

If you want to offer a "preferred" dealer list (how do you get on the list?), or sell adspace to dealers, just go ahead and use a different name from Toyota's marks. It's just that simple.

If you insist on using a trademark, you better have some kind of agreement with the owner.

 

This isn't true. I got a C&D letter from Toyota in the first year of ScionLife's existence. Toyota brass was very polite and warned me before the letter came. Their primary concern was that any products or services I offered might be confused as coming from Toyota and not a third-party. The letter was more of a formality. I am sure that TundraSolutions.com is facing the same challenge and I am sure that they will find a reasonable solution to the problem.

 

^ That's what I thought... Wondered why SL didn't get the same thing.... Scion and Us are buddies now.... , I'm sure the other guys will work something out.