Sues GapNote.com Social Network — The Gap

Clothing firm states you can’t use the term “gap” in your social media web site.

Clothing firm The Gap has sued GapNote.com and its founder for trademark infringement. GapNote.com is a fresh site that helps people chronicle their past, present, and future, and the gaps in between.

The lawsuit claims that the site ought to not be able to use the term “gap” anywhere in its name since the clothing firm owns rights to the domain name.

The Gap claims:

Defendant promotes and operates a web site with the domain name gapnote.com that services as a social media and networking web page, much like those on which The Gap expends significant time, effort and money to advertise and maintain a significant presence.

So The Gap apparently thinks that if you have a social media site that includes a generic, three letter term and a trademark holder markets itself on social media sites then you’re infringing its mark.

The one thing I will give to The Gap on this is that the site’s logo does use a font similar to The Gap’s old lower case logo. (It now uses an all uppercase logo.) Ahead of reading the lawsuit I went to GapNote.com and thought “wow, that logo font is similar”, and assumed the lawsuit was regarding the logo. But it’s not — The Gap is claiming a lot more.

You can read The Gap’s complaint here (pdf).