Defend our business fund
Donation protected
Our small, local family business is facing a lawsuit from a corporate trademark bully ... that is, unless we roll over and hand over the name that is legally ours. Because they have the money and the resources.
We've been operating Vermont Cowgirl here in our home state of Vermont for more than 5 years - making locally sourced soaps, soaks, body butters and lip balms and worked hard to establish name recognition for our local products.
Today in our inbox: a cease & desist letter from a lawyer in Colorado, representing a Colorado business making lotions under the business name of Rocky Mountain Natural Labs, LLC. They want us to cancel our existing trademark for Vermont Cowgirl because they apparently sell some of their lotions as "Cowgirl Cream".
What makes their demand so heartbreaking and ridiculous is that they claim that the "Vermont" in "Vermont Cowgirl" is the less dominant portion of our name. Well excuse us - one look at your website, blog, Facebook or Instagram shows that we're all about Vermont. We proudly do everything to use locally sourced ingredients, are stoked to work with local vendors and proudly say that VERMONT is by no means the less dominant part of our name.
It's pretty apparent that they're the bigger company. It's pretty apparent that they have more funds that us. It's pretty clear that they plan on leveraging this against us in hopes that we don't want to spend the time or money to go the distance. Well, they're wrong. Dead wrong.
While defending a long, drawn out legal process is not something we wanted to spend the next couple of months/years with, we don't like bullies, we don't like being bullied and we sure as heck want to show these bullies that they can't just make a claim and then expect the little guy to roll over.
So we created this little fund for our legal battle against "Goliath". This week, we'll be meeting with our attorney and outline the next steps.
If you have the money to spare, we would SO truly appreciate it as your support means the world to us and we honestly can't do it alone. If you can't spare the money, spare the goodwill and share this campaign.
Thank you so much already for reading this! This day may have started off with a punch to the gut but this is just the first round.
We've been operating Vermont Cowgirl here in our home state of Vermont for more than 5 years - making locally sourced soaps, soaks, body butters and lip balms and worked hard to establish name recognition for our local products.
Today in our inbox: a cease & desist letter from a lawyer in Colorado, representing a Colorado business making lotions under the business name of Rocky Mountain Natural Labs, LLC. They want us to cancel our existing trademark for Vermont Cowgirl because they apparently sell some of their lotions as "Cowgirl Cream".
What makes their demand so heartbreaking and ridiculous is that they claim that the "Vermont" in "Vermont Cowgirl" is the less dominant portion of our name. Well excuse us - one look at your website, blog, Facebook or Instagram shows that we're all about Vermont. We proudly do everything to use locally sourced ingredients, are stoked to work with local vendors and proudly say that VERMONT is by no means the less dominant part of our name.
It's pretty apparent that they're the bigger company. It's pretty apparent that they have more funds that us. It's pretty clear that they plan on leveraging this against us in hopes that we don't want to spend the time or money to go the distance. Well, they're wrong. Dead wrong.
While defending a long, drawn out legal process is not something we wanted to spend the next couple of months/years with, we don't like bullies, we don't like being bullied and we sure as heck want to show these bullies that they can't just make a claim and then expect the little guy to roll over.
So we created this little fund for our legal battle against "Goliath". This week, we'll be meeting with our attorney and outline the next steps.
If you have the money to spare, we would SO truly appreciate it as your support means the world to us and we honestly can't do it alone. If you can't spare the money, spare the goodwill and share this campaign.
Thank you so much already for reading this! This day may have started off with a punch to the gut but this is just the first round.
Organizer
Kat Mooney
Organizer
Irasburg, VT
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