Thread: The revitforum.org domain.

Dear revitforum.org members, colleagues and friends,

As some of you may be aware, Autodesk, Inc., makers of Revit, have retained the law firm of Donahue Gallagher Woods to notify all domain holders that have the word REVIT contained in their top-level domain name, that they are infringing on the Autodesk REVIT trademark. They have requested that we change the domain name of revitforum.org to one that doesn't contain the the word REVIT.

We refute these claims of infringement. The use of the trademark "REVIT" in the domain name "revitforum.org" is protected by the "Nominative Fair Use" legal doctrine that provides an affirmative defense to trademark infringement as enunciated by the United States Ninth Circuit, by which a person may use the trademark of another as reference to describe the product.

The administrators of revitforum.org will formally respond to Autodesk. However, if all else fails, we want to assure you that we are prepared to move revitforum.org to a new domain if that is required.

Whether or not there is a domain name change, rest assured that the forums will continue to operate just as they do now. We retain all the data on revitforum.org - that is not in any way at risk.

We will notify you via email and on the revitforum.org website of any required domain name change ahead of time.

Thank you for your understanding.

p.s. if you know an attorney with the appropriate expertise who is willing to donate their time for this good cause, please feel free to contact a forum administrator privately.

In the name of open and transparent communication, here's the letter from Donahue Gallagher Woods LLP and our reply to them:

Best of luck with this.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you guys! This website really deserves its name, and remains the #1 resource for anything related to revit.

Boy... Autodesk is really shooting themselves in the foot here... I hope they plan on going after Revitalize Day Spa (Spa), REV'IT! (Motorcycle Clothing), and of course, the biggest offender Vegan Juice and Smoothie Bar | Revitalive Cafe - Newburyport, MA 01950 (Vegan Cafe down the street from me. While they're at it, I suppose they will go after revitcity, a big conduit for sharing revit content, which HELPS them sell software.

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest.

It's very discouraging that the leadership at Autodesk doesn't see the benefit and value you guys bring them and instead they choose to further jam up our already jammed up legal system with something so frivolous. Best of luck with everything.

It seems to be a totally counter-productive thing to do for Aut*d*sk, since they need this support to create a culture to push their product. The spirit of the law would surely be to stop others from selling a product with the same name as a well-known brand and thereby stealing its goodwill, etc., and this website is surely not doing anything like this. Good luck, but the way the world's going, the corporate lawyers seem to be writing the laws too.

[There's a lot of chatter these days of the results of where the free-market philosophies enacted since the seventies / eighties are / have taken us vs. the more altruistic actions post-WW2. Buts that's another thread . . . ].

I hope you (we) win. Kamran

Originally Posted by cblackford

It's very discouraging that the leadership at Autodesk doesn't see the benefit and value you guys bring them and instead they choose to further jam up our already jammed up legal system with something so frivolous. Best of luck with everything.

As I understood it from a post a little while ago on linkedin, Autodesk has to actively protect their names otherwise they loose the trademark completely. I got the impression that Autodesk wasn't to happy with the whole situation as well. So to say they where also forced.

but this is my speculation upon an other post.

Originally Posted by kamranmirza

[There's a lot of chatter these days of the results of where the free-market philosophies enacted since the seventies / eighties are / have taken us vs. the more altruistic actions post-WW2. Buts that's another thread . . . ].

I've read a little on that set of issues and it's enough to make a nun drink. Insanely complicated, lots of he-said:she-said and depending on what and who you read misinterpretation of a lot of ideologies.

Originally Posted by xiqx

As I understood it from a post a little while ago on linkedin, Autodesk has to actively protect their names otherwise they loose the trademark completely. I got the impression that Autodesk wasn't to happy with the whole situation as well.

Do you have a link for that? Interesting concept.

Yikes! Autodesk is going after the community that support and gather around it!? Whats next LinkedIn groups?

If you do any social networking campaigns to raise awareness on this please let us know. I will like and tweet what ever you need us to. Best of luck!