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Apple is threatening to take down my app because of a bogus trademark claim

16 points by alirsgp ↗ HN
I own the app called 'Cuff' on the app store. Cuff is a popular 1 on 1 video chatting app, and it has many competitors. One of the competitors is a Chinese owned app called 'Monkey'.

They don't like how I rank for the search term 'Monkey', and demand a monopoly on the search results for the term.

I don't have the term in my keywords or anywhere in my app meta-data. But my app still ranks for the keyword. It ranks for a lot of keywords I don't have directly in my meta-data. I guess because of its overall popularity?

Anyways, they are saying I am infringing on their trademark, and I have no clue what action to take. Apple says they can remove my app if I don't act, but there's literally no action to take.

Do I have legal grounds here? I am thinking if Apple removes my app, I can take them to small claims court to try to make a case for reinstatement, since I am a one-man shop for the app.

It really sucks this is happening. I hate how some random Chinese shadow tech company can make Apple do their bidding in the US, so that American individuals/companies can't fight back. Since they are in China, I don't even know how I can take action against them for bogus trademark claims.

The only action I can think of is to take against Apple.

15 comments

[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 58.3 ms ] thread
readflaggedcomm
Was all communication by/through Apple? Which means Apple blames you for their own algorithm?

Maybe if you respond tersely and factually there there is now no infringing material, it triggers a manual review that should have happened in the first place.

alirsgp
Yes it was thru Apple. Apple just blindly takes the side of whoever complains. Similar to YouTube/Amazon I guess. I'm willing to fight this, but hope a manual review will resolve matters.
jesterson
It's not just Apple, it's unfortunate behaviour of all service providers. For them it's much easier to shut you down then even look into situation.

I'm getting "complaints" every week, mostly poorly written letters from lousy lawyers hired by competitors. Although the "complaint" is clearly doesn't make any sense (private entity claims it orders on behalf or Ministry without any proof), it still takes a lot of time to explain why the claim is baseless and of malfeasance's nature.

siquick
>> I hate how some random Chinese shadow tech company can make Apple do their bidding in the US, so that American individuals/companies can't fight back.

Hope you get it solved but this attitude just isn't going to help you.

soganess
EDIT: *Wipes egg off face* looks like monkey was purchase by the holla group...

----

I want to echo this. I hope you get some HN visibility and that translates into action. Good Luck!

For all those curious, monkey looks like it i run by two folks out of LA: https://www.linkedin.com/company/monkeyapp/about/

The source of their, supposed, $2m in funding isn't listed. That said, the founders seems like a fresh-out-of-college LA kids. I get rich supportive family vibes from the situation. I definitely don't get "scary" CCP shadow org trying tiktok 2.0 our youuuuuthz angle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Turner_(entrepreneur)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Pasternak

Sounds like the whole thing can be boiled down to "having access to lawyers doesn't mean you should use them.

alirsgp
They sold to a chinese company. I am 100% sure I am dealing with a chinese company (from English, and the fact they only respond at 3-6 am to emails)
sfgweilr4f
Get real legal advice then consider appropriate action. Time is not your friend. Depending on Apple's whims you could actually lose app store access as they stumble and fall over themselves to be as slow to respond as possible. It is very likely you won't get any sensible answers from Apple regarding any of this. Or any answer at all.

If you can take them to small claims court, do so. But for all you know you might not even be able to take them to that court.

Find out for sure. ASAP.

brudgers
This kind of thread invariably suggests to me there might be more to the story. I went to the homepage for the app. https://cuff.live/

I clicked on the Twitter link and Twitter shows the account suspended. https://twitter.com/cuffdating It's not that it makes the story here false. But getting banned by Twitter seems to take some deliberate efforts.

Also there's the similarly named "cuffing" It has been on the app store since 2015 and appears to have similar functions. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cuffing-online-dating-app/id10...

Oh hell, I didn't even need to go to that much trouble. The OP had a similar post months ago and got advice from HN.

alirsgp
Thanks, updated broken Twitter link. User discovery is thru App store, so website not often viewed
atatatat
> But getting banned by Twitter seems to take some deliberate efforts.

Wrong.

vaxman
What part of their Developer Agreement where it says NOT to go running to the press, did you fail to understand?

Regardless of the original issue, what are your long term prospects as a going concern in their store after doing just that?

Strange times we live in.

commoner
> What part of their Developer Agreement where it says NOT to go running to the press, did you fail to understand?

The sentence "If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." has been removed from the Apple developer agreement for some time.

From Macworld:

> It’s good that they removed that because it often seems like the only thing that helps.

https://www.macworld.com/article/234332/hey-there-apple-s-pu...

The suggestion to avoid the press is terrible advice. Apple has much more leverage in its relationship with any single developer, and bad publicity is in many cases the most effective way to reduce this disparity.