Google acquires my previous company, the Dealmap (formerly Fatdoor)

I'm happy to announce that Google purchased my previous company the Dealmap (a DBA of Center'd, Inc., renamed from Fatdoor, Inc.) this week.   Coincidentally, the announcement was publicly made on my 36th birthday, August 1, 2011. The Dealmap's parent company, Center'd, Inc. was started inside of my law firm Raj Abhyanker P.C. back in 2005 on a piece of paper approximately 6 years ago.   I was the co-founder, and CEO through the first two rounds of funding for the company.  

Raj Abhyanker P.C.’s management of trademark matters through Trademarkia described.

I want to describe how Trademarkia works, and describe a little bit about it's history. I also want to clear up any confusion regarding Trademarkia and my law firm Raj Abhyanker P.C. which handles all U.S. trademark filing requests through the site.

Trademarkia is a search engine whose aim it is to make government information more accessible, interesting and understandable to consumers.   Being both an engineer and attorney, I find the release of government data to be a fascinating opportunity to help consumers better understand their rights.   In the next two years, we hope to expand Trademarkia’s search engine offerings to other legal areas including corporate search, immigration search, patent analytics, international trademark search, copyright search, sound mark search, and other things. All of these search tools will be free.

Trademarkia's unique data organization and presentation of government data has made it the fastest growing websites on the Internet as of March 2011. The Trademarkia website now attracts over 1 million unique visitors each month and more than 2 million page views each month from more than 150 countries around the world.   To put that in perspective, one new person comes to the Trademarkia website every 3 seconds, 24 hours of every day.  

Trademarkia is not a law firm and does not earn any money from trademark filing or any other legal services.   The representation by Raj Abhyanker P.C. is made clear on the Trademarkia website in a number of places, including :  (1) the Trademarkia services page, (2) on every step of the Trademark workflow, and (3) representation by the firm of Raj Abhyanker P.C. must be assented to in the last step of the trademark workflow on Trademarkia.   

To protect client interests, all fees for trademark filing and legal services originated from the Trademarkia website are deposited into an IOLTA trust account for my law firm, Raj Abhyanker P.C., until fees are earned.   When legal fees are earned, they are earned by my law firm, not Trademarkia. Trademarkia DOES NOT earn any portion of legal fees, in whole or part.   Trademarkia makes revenue through non-legal services offered through Trademarkia such as logo design, user name reservation, watch services, and advertising.

 A metric that I track the closest at our law firm Raj Abhyanker P.C. is our allowance and registration rate of U.S. trademarks which we file. If clients cannot afford to pay any fees to respond to U.S. trademark office actions, but wish to proceed with their trademark registrations, we will file them at no cost.   We are honored to help thousands of small businesses protect their names, logos, and slogans.  

In fact, Raj Abhyanker P.C. secures more registered U.S. trademarks with the USPTO than any large intellectual property law firm in the world.   We have earned the trust and respect of thousands of small business owners in the United States and around the world, and have quickly grown to become the largest trademark prosecution law firm in the United States.   

All trademark legal services for standard, plus, and gold packages through Trademarkia are handled by licensed U.S. attorneys in good standing working for my law firm, Raj Abhyanker P.C.  There are no “do it yourself” options for U.S. trademark registration through Trademarkia, every U.S. trademark filing request is assigned to a licensed attorney in the United States working for Raj Abhyanker P.C.   

Conflict checks are performed by Raj Abhyanker P.C. for each matter and compared against a blacklist of companies that we cannot represent because current disputes with existing clients.   In addition, direct mark screens are conducted on even standard orders.  Likelihood of confusion is evaluated internally for standard orders by U.S. attorneys to determine whether it is likely we can overcome rejections in a subsequent OA response.  For those cases that we believe we cannot overcome rejections through Office Action responses, we provide a refund (including for standard orders). 

Raj Abhyanker P.C. is proud to represent budding entrepreneurs and do all we can to help them protect their rights and succeed. Our firm believes that the public, whether rich or poor, should be able to protect their intellectual property rights and gain access to quality legal services.   Particularly, we are honored to help clients of limited means rise as entrepreneurs.  

I also want to discuss my position with respect to email marketing.   Trademarkia’s emails are in full compliance with federal law for unsolicited emails, and we have secured a number of opinions of counsel of this fact.   Trademarkia communicates automated public service deadline notices with registered legal correspondents from free public information. Clear unsubscribe links are provided at the bottom of each message.  Once unsubscribed, emails are no longer sent.  

Before Trademarkia, private parties offered this service as a paid service to legal correspondents.  Trademarkia offers this service for free to all legal correspondents as a free public service. In addition, thousands have signed up for free alerts themselves on Trademarkia, and the site regularly receives praise from legal correspondents for this feature.  Trademarkia has effectively created a free public docketing system for the world.

The innovations that we have brought to the web have not gone unnoticed. Some attorneys and members of the bar have expressed legitimate concerns on how Trademarkia works and how our firm manages clients.   Our growth rate and innovation demands legitimate scrutiny. I hope this email assuages at least some legitimate concerns. In addition to legitimate concerns, whether through jealousy or envy, others have chosen a path to try and falsely paint Trademarkia, our firm, and me personally in a bad light with the hopes of stopping short the innovation that we have brought to the web and to consumers.  

For example, there appears to be some confusion with respect to my City Council campaign.   This has nothing to do with Trademarkia or my law practice.   In this local city election in which I was a candidate, a negative mailer was sent against an opposing candidate relating to the candidate's building a large home in the hillsides of Cupertino which required the removal of a number of large trees.     I do not believe it is wise to cut down old growth trees in the Cupertino hillsides.   The group that sent the mailer never formed it's committee.    The group that sent the mailer never registered itself, and my campaign took responsibility for its mailing for having helped support its message.   I am not ashamed of not wanting to cut down old trees taking hundreds of years to grow in Northern California just to build large homes in the otherwise beautiful hillsides.

 Local campaigns in our area are run by volunteers and are intensely contested in our city.  The group that sent the mailer never registered itself, and my campaign took responsibility for its mailing.    I will run again for local politics again one day, and when I do so I will make sure that the volunteers who support my views conduct themselves transparently and with clear disclosure.   I believe that there are many technologies that can be applied to make government run more smoothly and efficiently at a local level, and I would like to see America continue to lead the world in innovation and creativity.   

In summary, I am proud of my track record as an attorney and individual. I do the best I can every day to make my clients happy and build interesting and useful software products that will be enjoyed by millions.  

 I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to American innovation and growth through Trademarkia and my law firm.

Respectfully,

Raj Abhyanker

CEO, Trademarkia.com

Attorney at Law

raj@trademarkia.com

& Managing Partner

Raj Abhyanker P.C.

http://www.rajpatent.com/

Nice message from LinkedIn

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn 
Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:04 AMR
Subject: Raj, thank you for being among LinkedIn's first 100,000 members!
To: raj@rajpatent.com

Dear Raj, I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn's first 100,000 members (member number 84759 in fact!*). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the innovators, those who help lead the way. That was you. We hit a big milestone at LinkedIn this week when our 100 millionth member joined the site. When we founded LinkedIn, our vision was to help the world's professionals be more successful and productive. Today, with your help, LinkedIn is changing the lives of millions of members by helping them connect with others, find jobs, get insights, start a business, and much more. We are grateful for your support and look forward to helping you accomplish much more in the years to come. I hope that you are having a great year. Sincerely, Reid Hoffman Co-founder and Chairman LinkedIn *Your member number is the number embedded in your LinkedIn profile URL (after "id=").

Co-founder of Dealmap (formerly called CenterD, Fatdoor) Chandu Thota's first email to now Trademarkia CEO Raj Abhyanker

From: Chandu Thota
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 10:53 AM
To: Raj Abhyanker
Subject: Hello
Hello Raj, I just got your monster job post from a friend of mine I'm curious about this position.

Here is a quick summary of who I'm:

1. I'm a dev lead in Microsoft that lead the development of Virtual Earth: http://local.live.com
2. I have built communities/social networks around mapping as a hobby as well: www.feedmap.net
3. I have 10 years of development experience and looking for a senior development/strategy positions
4. I have filed 10+ patents in last 2 years
5. I have experience in building strong dev teams

Let me know if you are interested in talking to me.

Thanks.
--
Chandu Thota
Developer, Author & Speaker
http://www.chanduthota.com