For context, Hoarder is a bookmarking tool, and it was selected by selfh.st as one of the favourites of 2024
https://selfh.st/2024-favorite-new-apps/
Here is a link to the post, and it has also been copied below (with some extra lines added to fix formatting):
This post could have been about how hoarder reached 10k stars on Github, or about how we spent a day in the front page of hackernews. But unfortunately, it’s about neither of those. Today, I received a cease and desist from someone holding the “Hordr” trademark claiming that “Hoarder” infringes their trademark. Quoting the content of the letter:
In these circumstances, our client is concerned, and justifiably so, that your use of a near identical name in connection with software having very similar (if not identical) functionality gives the impression that your software originates from, is somehow sponsored by, or is otherwise affiliated with our client.
They’re asking to cease and desist from using the “Hoarder” name, remove all content of websites/app store/github/etc that uses the name “Hoarder” and the cherry on top, “Immediately transfer the hoarder.app domain to our client” or let it expire without renewing it (in Feb 2027). They’re expecting a response by the 24th of Jan, or they’re threatening to sue.
For context, I’ve started developing Hoarder in Feb 2024, and released it here on reddit on March 2024. I’ve never heard about “Hordr” before today, so I did some research (some screenshots along the way):
They have a trademark for “Hordr” registered in Jan 2023.
They registered the domain
hordr dot appin 2021.Searching google for their domain shows nothing but their website, their parent company and an old apk (from Jun 2024). So they have basically zero external references.
They’ve had their 2.0 release on the app store on the 3rd of Jan 2025 (2 weeks ago), with “AI powered bookmarking”. The release before that is from Feb 2023, and says nothing about the content of the app back then.
- Their apps are so new that they are not even indexed on the play store. Google says they have “1+” downloads.
- I found an apk on one of the apk hosting sites from Jun 2024, which shows some screenshots of how the app looked back then.
Wayback machine for the
hordr dot infoshows a references from 2023 to some app in the app/play store. The app itself (in app/play store) is unfortunately not indexed.So TL;DR, they seem legitimate and not outright trademark trolls. Their earliest app screenshots from June 2024 suggest their current functionality came after Hoarder’s public release. Despite their claims, I find it hard to see how Hoarder could cause confusion among their customers, given they appear to have very almost none. If anything, it feels like they’ve borrowed from Hoarder to increase the similarity before sending the cease and desist.
Hoarder is a side project of mine that I’ve poured in so much time and energy over the last year. I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with this. I’m posting here out of frustration, and I kinda know the most likely outcome. Has anyone dealt with anything similar before?
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I suggest that you spend the up-front money to consult with a lawyer. A lot of them will do an initial meeting for relatively little. They will be able to give you some idea of what risk, if any is involved in this. Then you can make a better informed decision about whether to ignore this, fight, or conceded and change the name.
I find out a few years ago that there are whole law firms out there who basically just send threatening letters for low fixed fees. They don’t litigate or even provide real legal advice. It’s one step above selling pages of their letterhead.
You won’t know how serious these people are, or how serious their complaint is, without consulting a lawyer.
Best of luck!
It would be interesting to decompile their APK and see how much of OPs code is in it.
The letter is from a lawyer, not a court. It can be ignored. However I suggest sending a registered letter back to the lawyer to waste their time.
They will not spend the $20,000+ needed to go to trial. (That’s only the court costs that must be paid. Full lawyer fees will be higher) I know this because I once had to sue a contractor. Court fees would have been larger than any money I would have gotten back. Fortunately it was handled through state licensing.
The letter should reference that your project is using the English word that describes the function.
I went through this decades ago because my Internet company name closely matched an extremely large computer manufacturer. I got a letter from an attorney. I wrote a letter back that my company name was the English word for the equipment used for Internet service. That was the end of it.
Follow the advice of @[email protected], with one change if you can.
Get a consultation with a trademark attorney. Bring everything (screenshots, findings, etc) to the consult and say you expect it will go nowhere, but if it does you may need assistance. Tell them your plan to send the letter, and ask for suggestions. A consult should be a couple hundred dollars, but some places even have a free call.
Also, use archive sites for any information you find online. Multiple archive sites. 3rd party validation could be key if they don’t back off.
They registered “hordr”, not “hoarder”. It’s not your fault that there exist valid words in the dictionary, that describe what your app is doing, that they are not using.
This is just the usual case of domain and trademark squatting. If they attempt to further raise a finger (which from what I have read, from a judiciary point of view they haven’t), you have good grounds to countersue. You can also provide the C&D as evidence of threatening and harassment and probably counts for suing the party who sent it if they used a third party, as there’s supposedly a penalty for issuing false or trolling C&Ds.
That said: in a decent legal system no one should be able to trademark dictionary words. I’d suggest you change your trademark from “hoarder” to “hoarder.app” or something similar, as at the moment you trying to trademark a dictionary word is a vulnerability point that opponents with more money to waste can use to attack you, as this shows.
Isn’t that exactly why so many of these company and app names have missing vowels? Because they can’t trademark a word but they can trademark a collection of letters that sounds like a word when spoken aloud. It’s really dumb.
Trademark is weird. Like, from what I can understand (IANAL and all the ANAL disclaimers) you can’t trademark “motherfucker” or “mother fucker”, but you can trademark “Mother Fucker’s” for, say, an escort service of dirty nuns.
My non lawyer, and probably wrong, advice is to send them a polite reply asking them to refer to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram (1971)
In the 1971 case of Arkell v Pressdram,[76] Arkell’s lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: “His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply.” Private Eye responded: “We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.”[77] The plaintiff withdrew the threatened lawsuit.[78] The magazine has since used this exchange as a euphemism for a blunt and coarse dismissal, i.e.: “We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram”.[79][80] As with “tired and emotional” this usage has spread beyond the magazine.
For context, from the Wikipedia for private eye magazine
Feels like this could be helped immensely by a blurb at the top of his GitHub page pointing to a gofundme to help pay for a lawyer. If the case has legs, settle and move forward. If not, it should be trivial for an IP lawyer to get dismissed.
That’s really sad to see. I hope the courts dismiss the cease & desist because it’s different name, and lack of popularity of the trademarked name.
Not only that, haven’t we agreed already that you cannot trademark common words? I might be wrong but if I am not, then by proxy you shouldn’t be able to trademark a similar word and then use that trademark against a common word name, no?
If someone started a blog site called “Tumbler” or a gay dating app called “Grinder” you could totally understand the conflict, couldn’t you. Listen, I went through this. I started a site whose name had a word that was similar to a famous trademark, and got a very similar cease and desist letter. I chose to change the name, and be candid about it, and I’ve been successful with it ever since. Just my $0.02, but I’d choose a new name you like and then register and trademark it like I did.
Nah, especially with all the good points others have said.
IANAL
While unfortunate, it seems like a legit case. Especially given how similar the apps are. One character off is quite confusing for a potential customer 🤷
I’d just rename the app and move on. Pick a different name that doesn’t come straight out of the English dictionary and is unique.
You are wrong that he should immediately change his app name.
This is a letter from an attorney. It means nothing. It’s legally the same as if I got my buddy to walk up to you and say, “Hey, my friend thinks you have his car. Give us your keys.”
I’m not saying “immediately”. He can take his time and make a decision or wait to see if they’ll pester him further or if it’ll even go to court.
For me, I’d just not bother with being in the unknown and just change the name to something unique, so that next time someone comes along, I can tell them fuck off because I did my research.
Reading some of the comments from the original post, it seems this is a trademark squatting situation. They registered the trademark (among many others I’m sure), then when they found a real tool they quickly built something similar and released it to support their claim. Suggestions on that post are that it happens all the time and ignoring them until it actually goes to arbitration is the best option (with the assumption that it would never get that far).
Though, fighting it takes time and effort. And you’d need to make sure to know the exact point when to pay a lawyer, when ignoring it gets you in an unfavourable situation or triggers some default ruling.
It’s up to the squatter to actually spend the time and money to sue though.
A C&D is a letter from a lawyer to stop or they’ll sue, it’s not a court order.
Yeah, but at that point you’d have to be prepared to fight it to the end. And pay your own lawyer upfront. The final decision on who’s going to pay is settled either in arbitration or by the court. And you need to win. And trademark law isn’t super easy to understand, you definitely need to invest in a lawyer and optimally get that money back. The time and effort is kinda wasted, though. You won’t get that back.
