Ask HN: I think my co-founder is freaking out about getting sued.
4 comments
i think it depends on the terms&conditions of google's playstore. just because you are german doesnt meant you cant ge sued by american laws, and i know that german and american laws are quite dirrefent when it comes to compensation (schadensersatz).
suggestions: delete references to "Yo" from your product-name (name it Jo instead); "Yo" is a registered trademark; you wouldnt name a chocolate you created "ritter sport", even if your name was armin ritter
suggestions: delete references to "Yo" from your product-name (name it Jo instead); "Yo" is a registered trademark; you wouldnt name a chocolate you created "ritter sport", even if your name was armin ritter
a) Not a lawyer, but the worst you'd likely get is a cease and desist letter, not a lawsuit out of the blue. Especially if you're located in another country.
b) It's ok to have a difference in opinion, but your co-founder should not be making major product decisions without you. That, to me, would be most concerning.
c) How should you handle it? Decide on clear roles, and develop the product further so that there's a clear difference between you and other products.
b) It's ok to have a difference in opinion, but your co-founder should not be making major product decisions without you. That, to me, would be most concerning.
c) How should you handle it? Decide on clear roles, and develop the product further so that there's a clear difference between you and other products.
Expanding on (c) ...
There will be times when you have a difference of opinion. The person who specifically and explicitly has control has, indeed, got control. It's the other person's job to try to convince them. Working together well means taking the time to listen to concerns, then making a decision. Sometimes that means changing your mind. This is not a competition between you. Changing your mind or not changing your mind is neither victory nor loss.
But for every decision, someone should have control, and their job, in part, is to keep the other person informed. That feeds back to point (b) above.
There will be times when you have a difference of opinion. The person who specifically and explicitly has control has, indeed, got control. It's the other person's job to try to convince them. Working together well means taking the time to listen to concerns, then making a decision. Sometimes that means changing your mind. This is not a competition between you. Changing your mind or not changing your mind is neither victory nor loss.
But for every decision, someone should have control, and their job, in part, is to keep the other person informed. That feeds back to point (b) above.
[deleted]
I'd be more worried about getting permanately banned from the app store. using your logic why not put imessage in your title?
I'm going create an app called "yo2". Where's my million dollars?
His main argument for not using Yo in our name, is that we shouldn’t be gaining traction from what others have built. However, I think tries to make up arguments why we should change the name. Also, in my opinion our app is significantly different to Yo and he is simply getting worked up about us getting sued for copyright infringement or intellectual property theft.
Moreover, having yo in the name is crucial for our app to gain traction as it communicates to people that they can do “one-word” communication to their friends similar to Yo, just in a bit of a different way.
I think my question is, is there any way we could get sued realistically? The thing is that we’re in German jurisdiction, so there is not much anyone can sue us about outside of Germany and if it goes through, it would take a year or so, wouldn’t it?
{1} https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.messenger.labs