Ford’s actions to protect its trademarks come to triplewhitefox.com
I had read about the effort by Ford to protect their trademarks more than a year ago. At the time I was glad I had chosen “triplewhitefox.com” as my domain name. Well, today I received some very bad news from CafePress.com which is the site that I have been using here for the Shop:
In accordance with our Intellectual Property Rights Policy, Gregory D. Phillips on behalf of Ford Motor Company provided us with a notice stating that your use of Ford’s trademarks, or any confusingly similar variations thereof including its related and subsidiary entities, Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar and Mercury infringes upon their intellectual property rights (trademark/trade dress/copyright).
I had thought I was pretty careful in respecting those. But, I have used “Mustang” on some items as well as in descriptions and search keywords and also “Ford”; but only in descriptions and keywords and not on actual items. They pretty much disabled every image that I have uploaded except my foxes.
So far I have not determined the pattern used against my images to identify them as violations. I feel that I need to understand this before I can resume the Shop. My best guess is that it was my use of “Ford” in descriptions that attracted their attention. If you search on “Mustang” on cafepress you will still get tons of hits that are no less in violation than my stuff was. This is very different from the results you get when you search on “Ford”. But, it seems obvious that it’s only a matter of time before they crack down on the use of “Mustang”.
Some of the images flagged were not even being used on merchandise and not visible to the outside world (or so I thought). These were the images for the signs I had printed for Carlisle and those are not visible on my public shop and do not contain any description or keywords. I don’t know how they were identified but it makes be very nervous about what I can and cannot use and what sort of depths they are going to in order to find violators.
Not knowing exactly why each image was flagged is what makes me nervous. Is it the content, the description, the usage, what? I have thought about contacting Gregory Phillips and even started to craft an email to him. But, I decided that, by definition, he will have a very black and white view of this as will Cafepress.com. I can probably predict the answer to any question I would ask — no, you cannot do that.
For now, I am going to lay low and rethink my approach on the items I offer for sale. And, I have to keep telling myself “I am not going to be negative about this.”
John I am very disappointed in hearing this and hope all goes well. As for “—-” or brand X which we may have to call them when we speak, write or describe them what are they thinking?? In regards to our beloved “——-” what should we call them? I belong to a local “——-” club and they use the word or words consistantly are they next on radar screen? We buy from “—-” and enjoy and promote there products loud and proud. We too will see what happens with this maddness. But rest assured that they will get an earfull from those of us loyal owners if they screw this thing up. Man whoever is in charge of thier leagal and marketing teams need to get together because they obviously are not seeing eye to eye. Best of luck. Sincerely Chet Zeidler owner of a 1993 “——-” feature car. And a 1998 “Cobra” hum is Carrol Shelby in this at all.
Sorry gang but I did spell legal wrong. Those lawyers had me all stressed out. Chet
Hey Chet,
Thanks for you support! Great comment.
I consider myself a Ford loyalist as well having always had _at least_ one Ford in the driveway throughout my years of driving with all of them purchased new except for the TWF. Earlier this year when I replaced my 1999 Explorer I went with another make. This is the first time I have had a non-Ford daily driver. I had been feeling guilty about this. Now, not so much.
I just can’t believe how absurd this is. Everytime the Fo__ or Must___ name is used in a positive way, that is just free advertising for them. How many times have we read on here and other sites that use these names, of people going back to their dealers to purchase parts. Also as far as this site goes we are talking about products they do not even offer. Try going into a dealer and buying just a plain Fox body shirt. Believe me I have looked, even on the internet there just are not very many offered. Now 05 to 07 thats different. Our cars are turning 15 this year and are unique to say the least. No one except you has offered us anything. For that I am very thankful. I hope they get some back lash out of this as I have been reading about other stories like this on other sites.
On the lighter side I guess I had better take my T-shirt in and get it preserved like my wifes wedding dress. It just might become a collectors item. LOL
Take Care, Jerry
This is a long standing issue for classic owners, who were disturbed to find their favorite suppliers being sued for 10k last year. Some had even had the “OK” from you-know-who previously to use mstng in their name. At that time, I decided I might by used you-know-whats since it didn’t line any pockets you-know-where, but I would never, ever buy a new one again (although at this point, they have nothing I would want anyway). Talk about biting the hand that feeds you-how soon they forgot that it was us, the enthusiests, that saved their precious mstng from death in the 90’s.
I agree on them not producing any shirts worth buying unless you own a S197. And they certainly don’t have parts for the classics!
As a side note, if you go back and check the marketplace, you’ll find more and more disappearing-it’s just taking Cafepress a while to sort through everything and remove the “offending” products. It’s just a matter of time.
@Jerry & Mstnglvr: I absolutely agree on the gap of merchandise available from Fxrd that sorely needs to be filled.
@Mstnglvr: based upon the email address you were required to enter with your comment (but is not posted here), I see you have a site devoted to another subset of late model Mustangs so I checked it out (BTW, if you so choose, you are free to enter the URL in your comments. Also, BTW, nice site!). There, I saw a link to your store on our beloved cafepress but it was not active. I take it that you too were impacted by this.
John-you are correct. Been busy and hadn’t gotten to killing off that page yet. My items were not tagged and didn’t even have an image of the car, they simply had the registry name and url on them. Not quite sure how they figured it was car related unless they actually visited my site. I’m at a point of wondering if it is worth keeping the registry or not. I don’t have alot of time to devote to it currently after starting my own business in addition to keeping my full time job, and I’m not too keen the thought of a lawsuit from you-know-who for using their name. Not that I’m aware of them doing that YET, but it’s been floating around in my head since the lawsuits against the parts suppliers.
I truly love my car, and would feel bad about killing off the site, but I don’t feel particulary fuzzy about promoting “them” when they are acting this way.
I can relate to your thinking. It is disheartening to spend your own time and money supporting something only to be knocked down for seemingly no good reason.
I certainly hope you continue with your site. I know from experience that it can be a difficult to keep the momentum going when you run one especially as schedules change and other priorities come up.
WHAT IS FORD THINKING ! SO I GUESS I CAN’T THANK THEM FOR MY WIFES ESCAPE—OR MY EXPLORER SPORT TRAC—OR MY 92 LX –OR MY 63 FALCON FUTURA . YES FROM THE 63 TO THE 06 THEY ARE ALL FO-D’S !!! I WOULD, BEING OF BLUE BLOOD BUT CAN’T BECAUSE CAN’T USE THERE NAME . HENRY WOULD BE PROUD ! (OR NOT)
WILL THEY WANT MY SHIRT’S-COFFEE MUGS OR MOUSE PAD ?
BY THE WAY MY NAME IS JOEL NOT JEOL LIKE I WROTE. I CAN’T EVEN THINK STRAIGHT, !!!!
I still haven’t made up my mind on my site yet. Wanted to pass these links along though, found them hilarious and might just wear one to next year’s dream cruise in the alley!! http://www.cafepress.com/iheartmy_edit_ and http://www.cafepress.com/iheartm_edit_g
LOL. Now why didn’t I think of that?