When the Hive Social social media application popped up on my iPhone a few months back, I actually thought it was one of our frontends because it was so similar to our project.
Luckily I didn't try to log in to HIVE Social with my HIVE keys or anything, that could have been detrimental, but who knows how many people may have already fallen victim to that mistake. HIVE SOCIAL probably already has tons of our user's keys on their server by now, if you can make a mistake on the web someone will surely find a way. But that is neither here nor there and that isn't even the reason for this post, the real reason is that HIVE Social is stealing our Brand name and likeness in the same Social Media industry that we claimed first.
Where there is controversy, there's always Elon Musk!
Don't worry, Elon didn't do anything wrong, he simply brought a lot of attention to HIVE Social after his Tweet response "lmao" in regard to a question "What the f--- is hive, weren't we all hot on mastodon like two seconds ago?" Source:BusinessInsider.com Elon laughed off HIVE Social as real competition because he probably understands that they are already about to be squished by us shortly if we all decide to do something about it. Heck it's just a measly student behind HIVE Social, he obviously doesn't know business law, so it's probably time to teach him a lesson.
In America, there are trademark laws, and business laws and the law states that a company can’t use another company or entity's name or likeness and go into business in the same industry with a similar name. More specifically the trademark law states that it is unlawful for a business to use a trademark (e.g., a slogan, a logo, a name) in connection with a good or service if that use is confusingly similar to another business's use of a trademark. So in my eyes, HIVE Social is breaking this law and has opened itself up to a lawsuit. It's the same thing as if a company decided to start selling Cola and tried to name the company Coke Soda to compete with Coke Cola, it's not going to happen. This is a cut-and-dry case, and I think if there are any lawyers reading this you should launch your own lawsuit before I decide to launch one myself.
Can 2 brands have the same name?
Yes, two brands can in fact have the same name under certain requirements without constituting trademark infringement, however, to determine which party is the rightful owner of the name the two brands can’t be in the same industry or geographic location. As for geographic location, both Hive (our HIVE Blockchain) and HIVE SOCIAL are on the internet so that won’t do for differentiating the two, so all that's left is the industry? Our industry is Social Media, which is the same as HIVE SOCIAL, the only difference is we use high-tech blockchain decentralization technology, and we came before HIVE Social, so it looks like their company may be infringing on our HIVE Blockchain Social Media platforms rights, therefore we can sue them, order a cease and desist to their company if we want, maybe force them to use put a disclaimer pointing to our site, or get them to settle with us and work together with us. We have leverage here, so it is our duty to use it, and would
Back when our HIVE was born, we were actually accused of stealing another HIVE Blockchains name, and they ordered a cease and desist on us, however, somehow this seemed to not go anywhere, probably because their lawyers realized that we were in two different industries, and it was ok for two brands. The other HIVE blockchain is in the Bitcoin Mining industry, they even have a stock, and we are in the social media industry, so we are easily differentiated.
Honestly I don’t plan on Suing HIVE Social, but this post is just a rant about the possibility.
I’m not saying I won’t sue them, and there is a good chance I may decide to sue them for a million dollars or more, but I still need to do my due diligence before deciding. My hope for making this post would be to give some bigger developers or lawyers here the idea to sue them.
My neighbor is a Lawyer, so I might run this case by him and see what he thinks. If anything I can definitely get him to send out some scary letters, that might be enough to get some kind of settlement. Maybe we could get them to work with us and adopt our technology to their platform in some kind of profit-sharing deal, but it might just be a good way to get some publicity for HIVE at the very least.
So next year after the holidays would seem like a good time to open a lawsuit against HIVE Social. If you all think we should open a class action lawsuit against them and you want to join in with me on this cause, then leave a comment below. If you are a lawyer, which I am not, and you have any reasons why I may be totally wrong and wasting my time with this lawsuit, your input is also very welcome. It would be a shame to let this opportunity slip by. If we don't dispute the brand name then they may be able to claim it for their own, or even sue us later in the long run. Ever since Elon's Tweet the other HIVE has already gained over a million new subscribers, so they are getting more powerful every second we wait. Hopefully, someone out there will notice this & decide to help us out and help turn this travesty into treasure.
