Heyyy, they’re walkin’ right here!
Town’s Transportation Division has hit an app that tracks New Yorkers’ block-by-block strolling routes with a cease-and-desist letter. DOT needs the free app, known as WalkNYC, to stroll away and are available again with a brand new identify.
That’s as a result of WalkNYC has the identify of DOT’s trademarked wayfinding program, as detailed with maps and instructions on sidewalks, close to Citi Bike docks and in subway stations. The indicators assist pedestrians, transit riders and cyclists get round.
The letter, despatched July 20, states the app and its adverts and on-line supplies use “nearly identical” branding and colours as the town’s WalkNYC supplies. The app’s contents “have caused confusion to locals and visitors and intimates that the City of New York is affiliated,” the letter alleges.
DOT directed the app to cease utilizing WalkNYC branding, disable the web site and app, and take away bodily and on-line materials selling it.
The letter prompted developer Joe Puccio so as to add a banner to the highest of the app that reads, “NYC DOT sent me a cease and desist. Tell them why you use WalkNYC.” App customers are directed to a kind indicating Puccio needs to share letters of assist with DOT from app customers.
“Like the DOT, I want to support the walkers of this city, and I’m hopeful we can work something out with them given that shared goal,” the shape states. It consists of questions on whether or not the app modified the way in which customers stroll across the metropolis and if customers had heard of DOT’s WalkNYC indicators and maps earlier than.
Puccio didn’t reply to requests for remark from The Metropolis Reporter.
DOT insists the letter just isn’t about shutting the app down however spurring Puccio to provide you with a brand new identify and branding for it.
“We appreciate every New Yorker who enjoys strolling through the most walkable city in the country — but app developers cannot use the city’s trademarked branding for their products without permission,” mentioned DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone. “We do not want there to be any confusion about this product and the city’s wayfinding program.”
A screenshot of the WalkNYC app exhibits a message in regards to the stop and desist letter. Credit score: WalkNYC
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace granted the New York Metropolis authorities federal trademark registration for WalkNYC in 2014. A decade later, DOT renewed the registration for one more 10 years. The registration provides DOT the unique proper to make use of WalkNYC and cease others from utilizing the identical or comparable in affiliation with associated companies.
Lawyer Stacy Grossman, founding father of the mental property agency SGIP, identified the app and the town’s wayfinding companies seem comparable, and each use a “walking man” icon. She additionally mentioned different events don’t seem to have used the WalkNYC trademark.
“All of this together suggests that consumers could be confused and the app should change its name,” mentioned Grossman, who doesn’t symbolize DOT or the app. “This is precisely why entrepreneurs should do trademark clearance work — to be sure that a new brand is available for use before launching a new product.”
Tracy Jong, senior lawyer on the agency Evans Fox LLP who works on mental property issues, mentioned it’s attainable DOT and Puccio may work out an settlement to permit the WalkNYC app to maintain its identify.
“That’s where one side says, ‘Hey, we both agree people won’t be confused as long as each of us do the following,’ and you craft appropriate terms,” Jong mentioned. She instructed the app may use a pedometer icon as a substitute of a picture of an individual strolling, or embody a disclaimer that the app just isn’t related to the Metropolis of New York.
The app WalkNYC, which grew to become obtainable on the App Retailer in Could, logs every metropolis block that customers stroll by marking routes with inexperienced on a digital map. A leaderboard exhibits how customers evaluate to every one other, and the app consists of statistics about mileage and time spent strolling.
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