DIY Doctor director Mike Edwards has just returned from the solicitors to start proceedings against a number of people, who, it is alleged, are using the goodwill and reputation of DIY Doctor Ltd, www.org.uk and www.diydoctor.co.uk to boost sales to their own businesses.
Typing DIY Doctor into google, for the last 9 years, has bought up the Uks top DIY information and advice site. Now, although we still appear at the very top, you can buy a book called DIY Doctor, which we did not write, but is published by an eminent publisher who registered a trademark, almost identical to ours, a matter of days after we did.
Because they have put their trademark description under a different category, it seems there is little we can do about it. They can sell their book, with our Company name on the cover.
This is a great example of a huge company using their muscle to push the smaller companies around and we believe it is preposterous. We have already spoken to a number of buyers who bought the book believing it was written by us, the real DIY Doctor. In the legal profession this is known as “passing off” which is one company cashing in on the goodwill and reputation of another company by attempting to mislead the public.
Obviously we are not accusing them of that. We would be in trouble legally if we did, but you can draw your own conclusions from the following facts.
1. Publisher decides that during a recession many more people will be doing DIY.
2. Publisher researches best categories to write about in DIY Book.
3. Everywhere publisher looks and every category publisher types into google, up comes DIY Doctor
4. Publisher checks trademark register and finds DIYDOCTOR is a registered trade mark.
5. Publisher registers DIY Doctor as a trademark under a paper publishing category
6. Publisher publishes book called DIY Doctor
7. Public buy book possibly believing it is written by us.
Makes your blood boil !!!!!
On another level, there are 3 or 4 building companies advertising their services under their company names of DIY Doctor !
Q: How dumb do you have to be to think of a name and just assume its original !
A: Very dumb indeed! but not for that reason.
For the reason that, having gone to the Internet and searched for the name DIY Doctor you discover that the domain is taken in all but a few very minor forms. So you compromise and take a name like .info or .net and you play about with the word DIY Doctor by adding hyphens and extra dots and the assume its really ok to put this name on the internet as a bona-fide company…..?????
Having registered the name DIY Doctor in any form whatever, it is impossible not to have come across diydoctor.co.uk and diydoctor.org.uk. One must therefore assume that the new companies have sprung up in the full knowledge that our very own DIY Doctor exists……It is not fair then, to assume that knowing this, and still calling yourself DIY Doctor, would be considered, by some, to be “passing off” and attempting to cash in on a name which has achieved a high level of goodwill by trading successfully for 9 years.
The cleverer they think this is, the dumber they must be.
So, to cut a long story (rant!) short, we have called in our lawyers to send them nasty letters threatening (and meaning it) High Court Action. There is only one DIYDoctor, it is a registered Trade Mark and we intend to protect it at every level.
Regards
Mike Edwards
Business Development Director
www.diydoctor.org.uk
Tel: 08456 342179
