Heyyy, they’re walkin’ right here!
The 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, referred to as WalkNYC, to stroll away and are available again with a brand new title.
That’s as a result of WalkNYC has the title 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 advertisements and on-line supplies use “almost similar” branding and colours as town’s WalkNYC supplies. The app’s contents “have brought on confusion to locals and guests and intimates that the Metropolis 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 despatched me a stop and desist. Inform them why you employ WalkNYC.” App customers are directed to a type indicating Puccio needs to share letters of help with DOT from app customers.
“Just like the DOT, I wish to help the walkers of this metropolis, and I’m hopeful we will work one thing out with them on condition that shared aim,” the shape states. It consists of questions on whether or not the app modified the best way 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 isn’t about shutting the app down however spurring Puccio to provide you with a brand new title and branding for it.
“We admire each New Yorker who enjoys strolling by essentially the most walkable metropolis within the nation — however app builders can not use town’s trademarked branding for his or her merchandise with out permission,” stated DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone. “We are not looking for there to be any confusion about this product and town’s wayfinding program.”
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 an additional 10 years. The registration offers DOT the unique proper to make use of WalkNYC and cease others from utilizing the identical or comparable in affiliation with associated providers.
Lawyer Stacy Grossman, founding father of the mental property agency SGIP, identified the app and town’s wayfinding providers seem comparable, and each use a “strolling man” icon. She additionally stated different events don’t seem to have used the WalkNYC trademark.
“All of this collectively suggests that customers may very well be confused and the app ought to change its title,” stated Grossman, who doesn’t symbolize DOT or the app. “That is exactly why entrepreneurs ought to do trademark clearance work — to make sure that a brand new model is offered to be used earlier than launching a brand new product.”
Tracy Jong, senior lawyer on the agency Evans Fox LLP who works on mental property issues, stated it’s doable DOT and Puccio may work out an settlement to permit the WalkNYC app to maintain its title.
“That’s the place one facet says, ‘Hey, we each agree folks received’t be confused so long as every of us do the next,’ and also you craft applicable phrases,” Jong stated. She advised the app may use a pedometer icon as an alternative of a picture of an individual strolling, or embrace a disclaimer that the app isn’t related to the Metropolis of New York.
The app WalkNYC, which turned obtainable on the App Retailer in Might, logs every metropolis block that customers stroll by marking routes with inexperienced on a digital map. A leaderboard reveals how customers examine to every one other, and the app consists of statistics about mileage and time spent strolling.
When he launched the app, Puccio informed information retailers he needed to stroll each block in Manhattan and described the product as his “little love letter” to New York Metropolis.
