Today I received a cease and desist from the lawyers of WeWork. They objected to me using “A Community of Creators” as a slogan for Creators Log.
I had no idea that it was similar to a registered trademark for WeWork, I had trouble finding the phrase on their website, had to dig deep into the footer to find it.
Also not sure how Creators Log could be considered similar to WeWork, we a content publishing platform, they provide physical co-working space.
In their letter they consistently use the phrase “The Community Of Creators” as their trademark, but I was surprised to read in the documents they themselves included “Exhibit A”, they actually have “THE COMMUNITY OF CREATORS WEWORK” trademarked.
What’s in a Trademark
You can find the actual trademark here. Nice that they dropped the “WEWORK” each time they mentioned their trademark.
I understand that WeWork has invested time and money into this mark (lawyers aren’t cheap), and they have to “defend” it. But really perhaps they shouldn’t have picked something that has been used for hundreds of years “A community of Creators”. Google has millions of results for the phrase, with only a handful belonging to WeWork.
Anyway we’re not attached to the slogan, it is just a slogan, and we’ll be changing it, but I really dislike how lawyers misrepresent their position. Do they think “normal” people wouldn’t understand the law?
Also this could have been resolved just as quickly if someone from WeWork had emailed me and told me about the trademark. No need to get the legal wheels in motion, but I guess that’s just how things work now.
/cc Seth Louey
