YourWishFromMe.co - Looking for feedback and retail partners

Main Site: http://yourwishfromme.com

Your Wish From Me is a new social gift-giving website that aims to revolutionize the gifting process. The website is integrated with other retailers, allowing users to build wishlists and registries consisting of thousands of products. Users can then share their wishlists with friends and family in order to group-buy the gifts. We are integrating with Facebook and others to make gift-giving a truly social, fun, and enjoyable experience.

Our missions is to put an end to bad gifts.

Your Wish From Me is built on top of OpenCart with heavy modification. Because we're using OpenCart, integrating with other OpenCart sites would be a simple process. We're currently exploring the idea of forming partnerships with other stores. We're especially looking for US-based boutique stores whose products we can feature.

We're in live beta mode right now, and looking for feedback and ideas.

Thanks!
Christina

Welcome to the forums

That's actually quite a cool idea! Very clean website, great FAQ page for new users! 5/5 from me. If you need a hand with anything remember you can post here any time

Peter

This is a good idea and I'd be interested in listing some products with you possibly - see my links in my signature.

Your site looks great. One thing is to be careful of the use of "Make A Wish". I used to do the website for the Make A Wish foundation here in Florida and they would go after sites using the phrase. Not sure if this has changed, but you might want to change it to "Create A Wish" or something just in case.

Peter,

Thanks for the comment and for making an account (I think that was you?). I appreciate the feedback so much. I actually finished up the FAQ page yesterday. I'd been putting it off because I knew it'd take forever to do. Thanks again!

Labeshops,

Thanks for the heads up on the Make A Wish thing. It's so hard to believe that you can claim a phrase like that. I'll definitely look into it, though. I still need a to iron out a couple of ideas on how to do these partnerships. We've currently got one partner as kind of a test case to see how it goes ( http://yourwishfromme.com/partners and what I did was wrote a modified version of the OpenCart's search function that outputs the information in XML format so that YWFM can process it. We're still trying to perfect the ordering process, though. We want the process to be as painless for the customers as possible.

Good idea. Content readily comprehended. Website readily navigated. You may want to darken blue text against the header background for legibility. On the name, you will want an attorney's written advice, at modest cost, for peace of mind, but the playing field has long since been plowed level . . .

The Foundation (wish.org) does not use the phrase "make a wish" -- the words are hyphenated, and moreover the hyphenated wording appears in a graphic. That happens to be important. Look at what the federal registrar of trademarks (where applications to use the encircled R are submitted) spells out for groundrules.

You could (go overboard and) add a simple disclaimer to effect that you have no connection whatsoever to and do not compete with the Foundation's well known purposes. Your name, however, is visibly different. Your purpose is plainly different. The essential test is what ordinarily intelligent people would perceive -- that you are not competing with the Foundation; they would be called a jury.

In "Your Wish From Me" you already did some of this. You can play with the phrase, for example, make/do/have a/your/someone's wish, etc.. Done. Look at a Roget's or subsequent Merriam-Webster, etc., thesaurus for ideas. Done, by default. You, too, can set up a graphic. The ribbon and box next to the name don't suffice. You have both "Your Wish From Me" in plain typeface and "YourWishFromMe" in stylized typeface. Play more with the latter. (In the USA never use the encircled R before applying for registration after at least a year of use, you would throw away ever having the R approved -- you can meanwhile put a little TM or SM beside it for protection of the mark.)

There are potential wrinkles when a word or phrase is a paper person's name (General Motors, Union Pacific Railroad), but that leads into how many states have the entity on file or doing business. Among the states even fifty single-state Unknown Little Restaurant would probably not want to force the issue, the cost of predictably losing would be substantial. Take the name "Apple" -- anybody can sell peanuts with it. You took care of that.

Generally.-- Images or typography using a commonplace word or phrase are amenable to trademark protection that the commonplace word or phrase will not enjoy. (The Foundation has a graphic.) The federal trademark registrar as well as domestic state and federal courts will construe the unhyphenated phrase "Make a Wish" as plain, commonplace, standard, lexical English that accordingly does not deserve trademark protection, except perhaps (not necessarily) where the Make a Wish Foundation, having used that recognizable phrase as a trademark, would be placed into frontal competition over what it specifically does, and even then the unhyphenated phrase itself would not likely be protected. (The Foundation hyphenated it.) It is well established that businesses of entirely different kinds choosing to use ordinary terms as trademarks can all do so long as there is no effective competition. That is why common words are often joined, as in OpenCart or WordPerfect, so as to turn them instantly into non-lexical trademarks, not in dictionaries otherwise. Ask some attorneys, or look at some trademark suits. There are limits to outcomes where the Foundation might huff and puff and rattle its sabre sabre-rattling could be taken seriously, notably where it would lose. (The Foundation has the encircled R -- exactly what its Registration covers in wording, graphics, fonts, colors, etc., is spelled out, on paper, on file with the Registrar, take a look at it -- for an idea of fashioning your own registration down the road, to protect as many fonts, colors, graphics, etc. as can be drafted into what the Registrar will accept in issuing your own Registration.)

Wow, butte. Thanks for all of the information. Your comments make feel a lot better about things. We've had plans to talk to a lawyer for some time now, so I guess we'll just have a couple more questions to ask them. Frankly, though, I'd hope they'd rather spend their money making sick children happy than going after a small site like ours anyway.

Thank you for the comments on the site as well. I darkened the hover text on the logo. It doesn't change the look much, but it does make it a bit more legible. Much appreciated!

You'll probably be ahead to find a trademark (or patent and trademark) lawyer, he'll be able to cut to the chase, won't have to read up on the subject, and knows what's iffy or not.

Some of the best changes are very inconspicuous.

As for things like patents, trademarks and registering companies- I know in the UK all of these applications for such things are always reviewed by the government to make sure you are in the right (so your trademark/company name doesn't clash with existing trademarks/companies). That's all the info I have on the legal stuff haha!

Peter

yourwishfromme wrote:Wow, butte. Thanks for all of the information. Your comments make feel a lot better about things. We've had plans to talk to a lawyer for some time now, so I guess we'll just have a couple more questions to ask them. Frankly, though, I'd hope they'd rather spend their money making sick children happy than going after a small site like ours anyway.

Thank you for the comments on the site as well. I darkened the hover text on the logo. It doesn't change the look much, but it does make it a bit more legible. Much appreciated!

Government approvals of trademarks, business names, and whatever else ordinarily entail submitted applications, prepaid fees, and issued certificates or registrations. How those are handled and the groundrules vary among countries, and among lesser (lower) jurisdictions such as states and counties. Examples involving business names include http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php ... 81#p428640 and a bit below it http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php ... 81#p428681 . If you want to protect a name or a mark, then be sure to see what your own government hierarchy requires or allows. In many countries consulting a lawyer over trademarks, etc., is a good way to avoid blunders.

How important do you think it is to get those things protected early on? We've been focusing more on developing and adding features to help expand our user base. Although, you hear every now and again stories of websites completely copying the look and functionality of another website.

Imagination attracts plagiarists who have none that matters. Noticed copyrights (encircled c) are almost universally effective on the spot. In USA trademarks and service marks can be protected by the little TM or SM on the spot but registered marks (encircled R) must be used at least a year first. Apparently in UK registered marks may not impose such delay. Business names take care of themselves on the spot, but require realizing where the jurisdictional reach goes and stops (nationwide or statewide corp., statewide LLC, county-wide MyMyselfAndI sole prop., etc.). A thrust of all of those is protection of intellectual property and intellectual property rights against unfair plagiarism, use, and competition.

Those are or become central to your public identity. Protect them as soon as practicable, minding particularly the ones that incur no or minimal cost. Trademark registrations in USA are expensive by any reasonable standard, but are also effective. The little TM or SM costs the time to draw the 6 or 5 strokes and let it sit there. The little encircled c costs the time for two strokes plus minor paperwork and fee; even Federal and States' agencies in USA copyright much of their stuff, which then is generally public, in public domain, but protected against certain abuses. One can imagine that counterfeiters in their right minds would rather face criminal counterfeiting charges plus fines than face criminal and civil copyright infringement charges plus fines plus damages. (In USA the KKK years ago was brought to an effective halt by the simple expedient of civil damages that left it worse than penniless, and, lo, the cowardly clowns in sheets that didn't make them men in the first place couldn't even afford sheets any more, and still weren't men.) Never underestimate your copyright notice; just do it as prescribed by current law.