Attorney: Hand Over The Name CaseRails And Nobody Gets Hurt!

We here at Abnormal Use have a question for you. Any chance that you would come across a company named CaseRails and inadvertently think you had found a company named CaseWebs or CaseSpace? Neither did we. However, one misguided lawyer who owns trademarks for the latter entities thinks you might. He recently sent a cease and desist letter to CaseRails demanding that they fork over their company name and Internet domain name.

CaseRails is a small startup that offers a document management system designed to automate the process for drafting, storing, and reusing legal documents.  Sanford Asman, a trademark lawyer, claims that the name CaseRails infringes on his trademarks for the terms “CaseWebs” and “CaseSpace.” CaseWebs is purportedly a litigation support software owned by Asman.  It’s not clear that the name CaseSpace is being actively used Asman.

Apparently, Asman believes he’s got a corner on the market for any legal software names starting with the generic word “case.” His cease and desist letter can be read here. In the letter, he claims: “I take very seriously any third party attempts to use ‘Case’ formative marks in connection with web-based legal applications.” Maybe he should give LegalZoom a call and offer to help them pursue all those companies using names starting with generic word “legal.”

Luckily for the guys at CaseRails, Asman is generously willing to work out a resolution if they’d be so kind as to hand over the rights to the name CaseRails and the domain name CaseRails.com. We can understand that the guys at CaseRails might not want to spend valuable resources in a battle over their name. However, that is almost certainly what Asman is banking on.  We hope they do fight the matter as this thing is just down right silly.

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