Back in mid November we got an email from someone claiming that we were infringing on their “Haystack” trademark. To their credit, the email was kind and calm. No legalese, no pointed cease and desist, nothing harsh — just a “Hey guys, we’ve got a problem here…” email.
They felt our use of Haystack was infringing on their registered Haystack trademark in the “business information services” category.
Over the next few weeks we traded a few emails back and forth. We didn’t agree with their claim, but we didn’t want to get into a protracted legal battle either. Any time you can avoid lawyers is a good time. They agreed.
We discussed purchasing the trademark from them, but we couldn’t agree on a price. So in the end we decided we’d just rename our Haystack service. We were only a few months in, and we’re in this for the long term, so renaming early wouldn’t be a huge deal. We’d cut our losses and move on. The sooner the better.
Sortfolio
So today we announce that Haystack is now called Sortfolio. We kept the haystack.com domain name so the old haystack.com URLs redirect instantly to the new sortfolio.com URLs. No broken URLs, no interruption in service.
Promotion begins again
We poured a lot of promotional effort into Haystack during the first month. Lots of folks have been getting lots of work. Unfortunately we had to go quiet during the trademark negotiations. We didn’t want to promote a name we might have had to change.
Now that we’re back in the clear, and Sortfolio is live, we can begin our promotional campaign again. We’ve got some big stuff planned including a special, innovative promotion we’ll be running on The Deck starting in a few days.
We will also be giving all current paying Sortfolio customers a free month to say we’re sorry for having to pull back on promo for about 45 days. Details on this will be emailed to our paying customers shortly.
Find a designer or get a client
So, if you’re looking for a web designer, or you’re a web designer looking for work, check out Sortfolio today. Continued success to everyone.
Peter Cooper
on 04 Jan 10For anyone who’s curious, I think this is the trademark registration in question, but there’s another one covering “providing on-line access to databases” that looks like it could have eventually clashed as well. It seems nuts to me that you can still register a trademark so vague.
Adam Michela
on 04 Jan 10That’s unfortunate. Sortfolio is a great name on it’s own but it doesn’t seem to fit nearly as well into your branding scheme as Haystack did.
Although I’m sure it will remain a success nonetheless.
Is the other party even using their trademark?
twe4ked
on 04 Jan 10I can’t sign up for sortfolio, I get a RoR error.
kevinn
on 04 Jan 10Too bad, I liked the name Haystack, it fits so well. The new name is kinda off (and sounds a mouthful), comparing it to your other service’s names.
Jesus A. Domingo
on 04 Jan 10Great applications give value to the brand they sport, not the other way around. And this is a great application.
Sukh Dugal
on 04 Jan 10The new identity looks like it was designed out of a time-limit and not taste or bought from a $99 logo-shop.
Sukh Dugal
on 04 Jan 10...and your homepage still stays Haystack – http://37signals.com/
Paul Montwill
on 04 Jan 10Sortfolio is much better than Haystack – easier to remember, sounds better. Maybe it doesn’t give the feeling what it is all about, but I still prefer the new brand name.
The new logo is poor. I agree with Sukh – looks like a $99 logo-shop and not a 37signals design. But I belive you will redesign it soon.
mhodges
on 04 Jan 10you have several big problems with your site.
1) I created some favorite in haystack/sortfolio (whatever it’s called…has different names in different places)
but I can’t access my favoriates anymore. I guess it doesn’t store them unless I have an account? so I tried create an account but it’s asking me to upload my best work… I’m not a designer. I’m BUYING not selling. Only designers can keep favoriates; not prospective clients?
2) I wanted to contact you to let you know about these problems. I scroll to the bottom of the page, and I saw a contact link, but it quickly loads more content and the contact link disappears. I scroll down again and try to click it real quick, but again, the ajax or whatever makes the footer disapper… this is not a good design.
regarding my favorites problem, I can’t remember the designers name, but I remember he did a site for “mind.ly”… I’d like to search for that, but no search function!
I was able to use google to search haystack/sortfolio for “mind.ly” and found the designer. phew! Could have been a lot easier!
mhodges
on 04 Jan 10PS: I preferred the name Haystack
Yunus
on 04 Jan 10Hey guys we have another problem here, Sortfolio is our trademark !
Someone has to make this joke :)
Congrats with the new name, hope it lasts for decades. and that looks like a quick resolution so identity issues will be handled in the future with your great visual taste. It really looks like a placeholder symbol right now.
Charly
on 04 Jan 10everytime you can avoid Lawyers, just do it, indeed, For the name, I’d preferred: 37folio
Mujaheed Shaikh
on 04 Jan 10You could have just called it Bing :-)
Don Schenck
on 04 Jan 10Ned? Ned Ryerson?
Jim Curious
on 04 Jan 10Curious: Why didn’t you run the trademark search beforehand? This isn’t your first commercial project after all, and you have good Trademark coverage on your other projects. The TM in question comes up first in TESS basic search…
James
on 04 Jan 10Schoolboy error ;)
Frank
on 04 Jan 10That’s a bummer. Sortfolio is a bit odd. Maybe it can catch on. Not sure why but it makes me think of websites from the late 90s Internet.
Ed
on 04 Jan 10Maybe you can flog the domain name haystack.com to them!
Brett Atkin
on 04 Jan 10This sucks on many levels. I liked the Haystack name and metaphor. I liked the logo as well. I can’t say the same for the new name or logo. As others have mentioned, it seems odd that a simple trademark search wasn’t run. Maybe you did and you didn’t think there would be an issue. Either way, it is a setback for 37Signals as far as I’m concerned.
philip tadros
on 04 Jan 10i own haystack vintage 2934 N Broadway and i was sued by a company in NYC for the same thing.
my insurance company jenny tola at state farm came in and defended it under some advertising policy and we won, they dropped it.
wonder if it’s the same haystack in brooklyn?
Andrew Warner
on 04 Jan 10It’s painful to hear that you can’t use the old name because I know how much work you put it into it. But I think people will get used to the new name and, after they have some time to build positive associations with it, they’ll love it.
JF
on 04 Jan 10Yes, we should have been more diligent with the original trademark search.
Anyway, what’s done is done. Sortfolio it is.
Tony
on 04 Jan 10Just curious, but on your success page did you just replace “Haystack” with “Sortfolio” in all the quotes?
JF
on 04 Jan 10Tony: Yes. We replaced all mentions of Haystack on the site with Sortfolio.
Geoff
on 04 Jan 10“We didn’t agree with their claim, but we didn’t want to get into a protracted legal battle either. Any time you can avoid lawyers is a good time. They agreed.”
I applaud both of you in the quick and amicable resolution of your dispute. Seems like people are increasing trigger happy with attorney-penned nasty-grams and legal threats, and both of you clearly chose a more civil and rational route. Bravo.
JF
on 04 Jan 10Thanks Geoff. It’s all a matter of degree. Some things in business are absolutely worth fighting for and defending at heavy cost, but other things are best left to easy, lawyer-free solutions.
Cameron
on 04 Jan 10Unfortunate, but not a catastrophe. Change the logo though.
Aaron
on 04 Jan 10Not a fan of the name or logo.
Spencer Fry
on 04 Jan 10Sorry to hear this. I thought Haystack was such an ideal name for this service. However, I’m sure you’ll soldier on.
JF
on 04 Jan 10I can’t sign up for sortfolio, I get a RoR error.
Sorry about that. That’s all fixed up. Configuration error.
Magnus
on 04 Jan 10I Like the name, but the logo makes me think of Windows.
Andy T
on 04 Jan 10If I’m the haystack guy I’m wishing I would have taken your last offer $$. Good call Jason. Move on while it’s still early.
The concept is more important than the name.
And how do people “hate the logo”? It’s a word in a font. Seriously people, worry about hunger, not the font of a 37signals rename.
Andrew Mitton
on 04 Jan 10I’m a lawyer and your response to this shows great humility and wisdom. You’ll be all the better because of how you handled this.
Soah Nsug
on 04 Jan 10@Andy T: Check out the stacked slides next to the “word in a font”
Justin Reese
on 04 Jan 10Funny timing.
Last night, I was discussing the Haystack identity with my brother. While it was a great name, the metaphor was unfortunately inverted: when hunting for a needle, a haystack is precisely the bit you don’t want. A more appropriate name (albeit worse brand) would have been “Needles”, the message being “no hay, just needles”.
I don’t think it mattered because the name was catchy and it was immediately obvious what you meant, but now that the name has changed you needn’t worry about further aggravating pedantic English majors. :)
Justin Reese
on 04 Jan 10@mhodges: Jiminy, you’re right. It is a pain to hit that contact link. Probably shouldn’t combine unique footer info with an “infinite” scrollbar.
Anonymous Coward
on 04 Jan 10What’s Haystack?
Melvin Ram
on 04 Jan 10When I saw SortFolio.com show up on my referral list and saw it was exactly like Haystack, my first thought was “Wow, that didn’t take long. Talk about an EXACT copycat.” Then I scrolled to the bottom and saw the 37signals logo and was like “hmmm.”
Have you considered making the logo more like the deck itself with one big rectangle (instead of 4) and multiple little ones below it inside the Polaroids?
Melvin Ram
on 04 Jan 10Forgot to mention that you might want to place a short text next to the new logo saying “Formally known as Haystack.”
Bruno Miranda
on 04 Jan 10The logo does not match well at all. It is does look like one from template monster or something like that. The name Sortfolio sounds like web 1.0 I do like 37folio much better.
David Trang
on 05 Jan 10Shame. Haystack sounded so right when describing all of your products.
Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack …. Sortfolio. Doesn’t seem to roll off the tongue as well.
Dave Rosen
on 05 Jan 10Don’t forget to flip the logo here: http://37signals.com/about
Anonymous Coward
on 05 Jan 10With all of your experience with TMs, this seems like a rookie mistake. I agree what’s done is done but isn’t there a way around the tm?
Was the claim from the previous owner of haystack.com? If not, don’t really see what the problem is… wonder if they had the same trouble. Couldn’t you just tm two words with Haystack as one of them?
Brade
on 05 Jan 10Wonder if you could have called it “Heystack”
Andrew
on 05 Jan 10Folks wondering why 37s didn’t check the trademark: I don’t presume to put words in Jason et al’s collective mouth, but it’s likely they did do a trademark search, and felt their service didn’t infringe on the existing trademark. Trademarks are granted for specific business categories - the “trade” in “trademark.” This allows a mark to be used in different realms without conflict - eg, Haystack™ goat cheese can coexist with Haystack Vineyard™—while giving companies protection from competitors trying to use similar names to confuse the marketplace.
37s took a chance that the name was dissimilar enough to escape conflict. It’s up to the trademark holder to defend their mark; sounds like that’s what happened here. And good for both parties for settling amicably.
Name
on 05 Jan 10@Magnus The logo instantly reminded me of Microsoft Windows as well.
@Andy T I think what people are objecting to is the Windows-looking icon to the left of the type treatment: http://asset3.sortfolio.com/images/logo_card.png
Compare to: http://www.serendipity-software.com.au/img/v1/windows-logo.jpg
Lew
on 05 Jan 10The good news from all of this is how well the matter was resolved. No lawyers, no pissing match, and apparently good will on all sides.
Life is so much better when business people focus on their business, rather than relatively small distractions that can become a strategic pain in the ass if you let your ego get out of control. Jason, I realize that haystack is a great name and I’m sure you’re sad to lose it for your product, but I commend your decision to focus on the critical things for your business and not get sucked into a potential legal quagmire. Kudos.
Zach
on 06 Jan 10Ever wondered what % of a product’s success actually comes from the name or the logo?
Bober
on 06 Jan 1037signals, please make a marketplace to trade websites. Flippa.com is just wrong and nobody treats eBay seriously.
Alon Koppel
on 06 Jan 10Regardless of the name Haystack or Sortfolio (which does sound a bit odd), so far we got no inquiries for web design services after about two months of using the service (paid account). We did get one email from a person looking for work.
I am hoping that with a resumed promotional campaign we’ll see more more positive results and at least some interested people and as a result some new clients. Happy 2010.
This discussion is closed.