Someone copied our web site

[slinky]

I work in a small company and our president's brother is a web programmer and did a nice job on our site. I was using yahoo and found a site that seems like they stole our pages and then added in their name into our graphics and also changed the listings on the borders and footers and replaced them with theirs. Can we sue them for infringing our trademark? Thanks.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Originally posted by slinky ...found a site that seems like they stole our pages and then added in their name into our graphics and also changed the listings on the borders and footers and replaced them with theirs. Can we sue them for infringing our trademark?

This seems to be a question of copyright, not trademark. The two are commonly confused -- copyright covers works of authorship, e.g. books, trademarks cover trade names, e.g. "Coca-Cola." In this instance the copyright rights seem to be in graphics that you may have created and possibly code as well. Make sure that the product is yours before you send a letter to the site owner to cease using the works. Did you create the graphics and the code? With graphics, the easiest way to tell is if you have a watermark embedded into the graphic. With code, a good method is to search the source and see whether there are any calls to cgi scripts or other locations on your web site. (In IE or Navigator, choose "view--source.") Many forget or don't know how to remove these details.

Additionally, while you may have a cause of action against the site owner, remember that a lawsuit is only as effective as the return -- just how much are your actual damages? Does it really pay to pursue the matter if they cease use?