As someone who is coming to increasingly believe that 99% of the world problems are caused by powers seeking to intentionally divide us one from the other, I cannot tell you how much joy this brings me to see. I wish you great success in this effort, however small it might appear to be in the scheme of things.
Every day, thousands of Cease and Desist letters are issued, telling people to stop what they’re doing (Looking at you, David Chang). What a bummer!
That’s why we created: The Continue and Persist Letter. A official-looking legal letter that encourages and uplifts people, one that tells people to keep doing what they’re doing! Surprise someone you appreciate by sending them a Continue and Persist Letter.
Cool idea! It sounds like you're offering it for free, with the option for a donation. How are you going to deal with the influx of what I imagine will be hundreds of free requests? Won't that get pretty expensive fast?
Yep. I definitely don't really like friends handing my residential address to third parties to mail me stuff without my consent. They can mail me stuff directly if they want though.
- a trademark may be claimed with TM even if not registered. A trademark registered with, and accepted by, USPTO should use circle R.
- these folks hold the copyright on their specific letter. Avoid infringement (and potential negative legal ramifications) by not reproducing their letter. This is not limited to photocopying a physical paper. Retyping verbatim will infringe.
- the concept itself cannot be protected with existing (US) intellectual property law.
To complete the legal analysis a bit more rigorously, mostly because I’m drunk and bored on Thanksgiving:
- The service name “continue and persist” is probably trademarkable by them if they wanted (assuming it’s not already in use). And as you point out, formal registration wouldn’t be necessary, although it does come with various benefits. Doing so could block someone from creating a similar service with the same or confusingly similar name.
- For copyright, reproduction doesn’t have to be verbatim to infringe. The standard is typically substantial similarity. So you couldn’t just change a few words here or there in the letter.
- Publicly disclosed concepts can be protected under US law, but you have to go through patent law. Haven’t done a prior art search, but seems unlikely that there’s much patentable here. There is also the section 101 (abstract idea) issue, but that is hard to evaluate without looking at the exact patent claims at issue.
if it's free, you're the product, better yet, you're giving away your friends and families adresses for free.
I like the idea though^^ might send a few on my own
As someone who is coming to increasingly believe that 99% of the world problems are caused by powers seeking to intentionally divide us one from the other, I cannot tell you how much joy this brings me to see. I wish you great success in this effort, however small it might appear to be in the scheme of things.
Every day, thousands of Cease and Desist letters are issued, telling people to stop what they’re doing (Looking at you, David Chang). What a bummer!
That’s why we created: The Continue and Persist Letter. A official-looking legal letter that encourages and uplifts people, one that tells people to keep doing what they’re doing! Surprise someone you appreciate by sending them a Continue and Persist Letter.
Cool idea! It sounds like you're offering it for free, with the option for a donation. How are you going to deal with the influx of what I imagine will be hundreds of free requests? Won't that get pretty expensive fast?
I think the rules are you have to put a Show HN: in the title when you self post
I don’t think that’s a rule, but it does give you a better chance of being noticed because it goes on the show list.
Yes, but, they admit they’re not lawyers :’ )
It's a clever concept, but I'm leery of having someone send a letter on my behalf to someone.
You all haven't trademarked the idea, have you? I think I'll just write a few of these up myself and send them out.
> I'm leery of having someone send a letter on my behalf to someone.
Agreed. I don’t know what other junk mail will be included, nor how my recipient’s data will be used.
Yep. I definitely don't really like friends handing my residential address to third parties to mail me stuff without my consent. They can mail me stuff directly if they want though.
Trademarked the idea?
I don't think that word means what you think it means...
I'm not OP, and I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure you're free to try this concept for yourself.
Three ways to protect IP
Trademark is for logos and names Parents are for methods and inventions Copyright is for works of art and writing
They might be able to trademark the phrase "continue and persist", but it's not likely. If they had they would have put a little TM or (r) next to it.
It's not sufficiently original to qualify for copyright protection.
And it's so far from being patentable I hope I don't have to explain why.
In the US:
- a trademark may be claimed with TM even if not registered. A trademark registered with, and accepted by, USPTO should use circle R.
- these folks hold the copyright on their specific letter. Avoid infringement (and potential negative legal ramifications) by not reproducing their letter. This is not limited to photocopying a physical paper. Retyping verbatim will infringe.
- the concept itself cannot be protected with existing (US) intellectual property law.
To complete the legal analysis a bit more rigorously, mostly because I’m drunk and bored on Thanksgiving:
- The service name “continue and persist” is probably trademarkable by them if they wanted (assuming it’s not already in use). And as you point out, formal registration wouldn’t be necessary, although it does come with various benefits. Doing so could block someone from creating a similar service with the same or confusingly similar name.
- For copyright, reproduction doesn’t have to be verbatim to infringe. The standard is typically substantial similarity. So you couldn’t just change a few words here or there in the letter.
- Publicly disclosed concepts can be protected under US law, but you have to go through patent law. Haven’t done a prior art search, but seems unlikely that there’s much patentable here. There is also the section 101 (abstract idea) issue, but that is hard to evaluate without looking at the exact patent claims at issue.
if it's free, you're the product, better yet, you're giving away your friends and families adresses for free. I like the idea though^^ might send a few on my own
Achtung! Halten! Verboten!
Cool that they have an office in the capital of the north east corner of the GTA.