A bitter story for Audio-à-porter
Update May 2023
Why can’t you find the audio article? Because we can’t publish episodes of the podcast. After the European Office has recently confirmed the opposition, and therefore effectively inhibiting the use of “à-porter” in trademarks, the brand, not satisfied with the result, informs us through lawyers that Audio-à-porter has been used again for a podcast released on April 13 (https://www.spreaker.com/show/audio-a-porter). We need technical times for the transition, which we would like to live with necessity and not threatened by the launch of subsequent actions. Instead, we know that you, the reader, will be patient and you will soon find the episode uploaded. We are sorry and cannot understand the appropriation of “à-porter”.
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It was not easy to make this communication.
We don’t give up, but… A sense of powerlessness in the face of the arrogance of the bigger companies.
Is it right to appropriate commonly used terms? Why deal with so many small brands, when there is no remote risk of a real threat? Appropriating common words scares me.
We would like to make this story known. Thanks for your help.
I’ve waited a long time to post this message. Because it’s not easy to tell what happened and also because, since it’s something to do with lawyers, I had to wait before talking about it.
A few years ago Audio-à-Porter was born, the podcast connected to Dress ECOde, where you can listen to the audio articles, but also to live episodes. It’s an adventure that began three years ago now, but which, as you may have been able to see too, we’ve never pushed or promoted much. We have mentioned it, even when we say that the audio articles can be listened to, but we have always been very cautious. In fact, we have had many difficulties since the moment of registering the trademark. And this concerns above all the name.
I want to tell you this story. Not because we want to feel like a victim of something, but because to reason and I’m also interested in knowing what you think, if something like this has happened to you. And also, if you like, a little bit of venting something that’s been making me sick for the past three years.
Right from the start, they opened a legal procedure for which I also had to request the support of lawyers. And this, as you know, involves resources, including economic ones. Yoox Net-a-Porter in recent years is trying to assert its reasons for the fact that it is much better known than us. And also to many other brands that have tried to use the “à-Porter” part in their name. Yoox says we create confusion. You can confuse Net-a-Porter and Audio-à-Porter or other fashion brands that have used this part in the name. They also argues that, riding the wave of their success, it can bring us an advantage and instead cause damage to their image.
I remain very dumbfounded. From the beginning. When assumed, probably incorrectly, that “à-porter” could be used, but I don’t know, I’d also like to know what you think. It’s a commonly used expression, so I’m really amazed that it’s not possible to use it instead. I’ve seen a list of brands that have been stopped and therefore harmed by using this part in their name.
I’m very sorry. We are therefore grappling with the search for another name. I don’t know if the transition will be easy, because Audio-à-Porter is now known this way. It will not be easy, even from a technical point of view, to transfer what has been done from one name to another. In the meantime, however, I wanted to share this with you too, because it really has been making me feel bad for years and also the fact of not being able to talk, advertise and talk about Audio-à-Porter in a free way hasn’t made me feel good at all this years.
Let me know what you think, if it happened to you too and above all if something can be done. Because today it is Audio-à-Porter, tomorrow it could be another word, another suffix, perhaps widely used in our language or in other languages.
Thank you if you’ve come all this way to listen. Thank you very much, I will let you know if there are any developments. At this point though, pulling ourselves back, I don’t think so. We’ll see what new name we could use for the podcast.
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