TRADEMARK IT! Identity Theft by any other Name

 THE 1st and ONLY CAKE GIRL


 This is a warning to anyone out there who thinks that QLD Government covers you when you start a business and try to do everything by their rules...you get screwed! It's called Identity Theft and there's nothing you can do about it once it's happened.
 Unfortunately, this Blog won't be about my cakes but the business of Names. A very steep learning curve.

So three weeks ago, I got up on a Monday morning and jumped on to answer client emails which is all I seem to do in my spare time. One of the few answered that morning was from a fellow called Gabriel who had asked me via email to join his free promotional wedding page "TopWeddingsAustralia". I had spent over an hour the previous week answering his "interview" via email and attached several of my cake photos to be included in the site.
  He seemed decent and polite enough in our written discussions and when I recieved the email stating that his website was functioning and the link, I was so excited I immediately jumped onto it.
  You can imagine how dissapointed and betrayed I felt when I saw a website for a lady calling herself "cake girl" who wasn't me.
  Boy - it was like a kick in the gut.
  I went straight to her site from the tab and looked at her website: so close in name to my own.
  Then I flicked back and forth in tabs to Gabriels' and couldn't spot my own...WTF?
  So I immediately picked up the phone and spoke to the Department of Fair Trading. According to the person on the phone, there wasn't much I could do.
   He checked ABN's for her and trading names: Nothing.
  There was every chance that she wasn't working from a legal kitchen.and had started the business without the required licences. If this was the case I was to write a letter to the Registrar of Business Names explaining the situation and basically telling on her.
  I didn't want to do this.
  He told me not to worry - if she tried to use the business name it would come up as "too close" in the files and not allow her to have it.
  The trouble was she already had taken up a web address that was extremely close. Using a prefix of 'the' as any librarian will tell you doesn't mean that the name is filed under T.
  This woman had used the same name as me without the prefix and as far as I was concerned she was trading under my name already!
  I thought about what the guy had said and pressed the "contact me" tab on her site. The only way to reach her was thorugh an email so I made an enquiry asking her to please call me in regards to her trading name. I wanted to know why? Why had she started using my business name? Yes, her website explained this was her nicckname but so what? It didn't mean she had the right to hurt my business!
  I jumped on Facebook and asked my Fans and Friends for help. Anoher cake decorator - Sarah Jane from Cake That was a plethora of knowledge. Armed with more information I rang IP Australia (Intellectual Property) - by this time office hours were closed...they run on Sydney time...stupid me!
  Sitting on the computer I tried to get as many details as I could but the IP site was so confusing using terminology I'd never heard of.
  A night of restless sleep followed as I hadn't done any work. I couldn't help feeling that the universe was going against me and that there was nothing I could do.
  The next morning 8am rolled around slowly. I finally managed to get through to someone at IP who basically told me what I had already gathered. I could apply for a trademark as a word, a typeface or a logo and each one cost over a $100.
  And this wasn't a certainty! I would then have to wait 3-4 months until they let me know whether the application had passed! Once they let me know if it was a positive return I would need to pay for an Australian or an International trademark on top of the money already spent.
  Now I understand...it's another way for more money to be dished out to government. What a rort!
 Fine -caught between a rock and a hard place I had no choice. I placed my applcation and wished for the best...not that it's ever helped in the past but what could it hurt?
  My head was spinning. I was over tired, feeling ill and sick of it all. Is it really all worth it? All those years of trying to get something together. Something I wanted to do, Something I thought I could be good at - out the door!
  Then I sent the lady another email...please respond! I was going out of my mind!
  I sent emails to trademark lawyers but had no response.
  I sent an email to the website creators and lastly an email to Gabriel. Explaining my dismay at having discovered this lady through his website with the same business name, in the same city, I thought he would realise what had happened and remove the website link and replace it with mine.
  But no.
  Not only did he not do this but he repsonded to my email with the nerve to say "We'll I have checked your Business names and your's is The Cake Girl, and the one in the site is Cake Girl, some sort of similarity but two completely different businesses. As for the website, your's is http://www.thecakegirl.com.au/ , and the one on the site is http://www.cakegirl.com.au/ , and if I am not mistaken these are two complete different websites." WHAT??? Completely different businesses?? How so? With a prefix of 'the'? We both make cakes. We're both in Brisbane. We're both called the cake girl!
  I'll tell you the difference!
  I have an ABN and a registered business name.
  I have been trading using this name for 4 years!
  I have worked, done the hard yards and advertised for clients - to which I now have a business which is reasonably successful.


...looking up every possible link from google to my name, I found her phone number back on the original promotional website. Upon calling, I was directed to message bank and I left the same massge as I had via email: Could she please call me in regards to the business name?
  It was approximately 5-10 minutes later that my phone rang.
  Following my explanation, she stated that "she never meant to hurt anybody" and that "it was an honest mistake" but it didn't feel like she wanted to do anything to change the situation.
  How depressing.

By the end of the week the website was still up and running and one of the lawyers I had spoken to had responded with a phone call informing me that after my call, the lady had applied for an ABN using her name - not the cake girl.
 Honest my foot!

 So with all the stress, I am now in the process of employing a lawyer to follow this through.
 With the verict being - trademark! Do it before you end up in the same situation as me. It's extra money but it's the only avenue we can take to make sure someone else doesn't come by and use all the work you've done to jump the queue.
 

 

 
 

I've been a Bad, Bad Girl

  You know what they say - good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere! So what's the deal because I've been nowhere but work and home. Oh - apart from family weddings'!
As per usual I apologise for not having a chance to get on. I'm sure the Tax Department will be happy to hear that I'm spending my time on this rather than at the accountants making sure my Bas is up to date. Oh well - them's the breaks!
  It's been a hectic couple of months with the wedding season now over with and the last stragglers coming through, I wonder what the silly season will bring?

  "Under the Cherry Blossoms" - The cake on the left was an interesting change to the usual wedding cake with both the bride and groom being avid badminton players. They wanted to incoprorate this onto their cake with the two hand-made figurines sporting sneakers, rackets and bag...pretty good promotion for the companies making the equipment!
Cherry blossoms accent the rest of the cake from front to back.


  Toy Story 3 has come out to raving reviews and the children have been wanting a theme cake. There's been toy boxes and beds, tiered stacks and exploding Dino's! I've had fun making the characters out of molding paste and watching the kids faces when they come to pick up their cakes is even better. Mind you - I think I would cry when I see them tear into it!

  "Sunday Roast" was a strange cake to make. I kept expecting the smell of fried chicken, potatoes and peas to issue forth and yet the sweetness of the icing and te chocolate cake beneath assaulted the senses instead.
  It was enough to do your head in.

  These small cakes were for a wedding where the groom had lent his artistic creativity to the event. His design of their initials withing a heart linked by a graphic element was a nice change to a traditional wedding cake.

  Each cake had a white fondant heart placed on top with the logo reproduced by hand-painting with edible food colours on top.

The couple had a variety of guests including family memebers from overseas so although they kept the wedding small, the flashiness was outdone with their inventiveness.

  Once stacked at the venue, I had created a larger cake topper in the same vein as the smaller cakes but with a little bling on the side.

  With hearts coming back into vogue, this twist on a classic cake looked absolutely fabulous. The edible silver cashous encrusted around the base of each tier added luster.
 When I dropped the cake off at the venue I was happy to see how well the cake fit in with all the decorations - it was pretty in pink!

 
  On a sad but happy note - it's nice to see that sometimes when weddings don't work out there can still be a funny side.
  I made my first 'divorce' cake ever. There have been many noted on the interent and emailed to me by friends who thought the idea a hilarious one.

   With large flowers being all the rage - the "Sexy Temptress" to the right was a beautiful, stunning cake to create.

  The cake was then transported to Stradbroke Island for the wedding and I think my grey hair grew by 90% that day. The weather did not bode well and with all the rain, the humidity was really putting a damper on things.

  Thank god it got there in one piece and the weather cleared for the wedding the following day. I breathed a sigh of relief when the Bride's mother contacted me thanking me for a job well done.

 

   A great order for a family just returned from an African safari were the two seperate cakes to the left and below.

  The rhino was recreated for the boy in the family and the giraffe for his sister. Apparently, they had enjoyed the safari so much that mum thought it was a great idea to have their favourit animals on the trip made from cake for their birthday party.
 
  I couldn't make the giraffe's neck as long as I wanted to but who know's? - maybe we'll be able to get our hands on 'rice-crispy rolls' like on 'Ace of Cakes' soon enough! Australia will catch up quicker that we think.

 

"Rabbitoh's" everywhere rejoice! A young fan who works down at my local fruit shop had this ordered for her birthday. She recalled it immediately whn I dropped in to buy some vegies the other day.

  I couldn't believe she was still eating it although the party had been more than a month prior!

 She said she had stored it in the fridge and the cake still tasted great. I must say I was skeptical. But she seemed happy and healthy so who am I to judge?

 Weddings are so diverse and each couple has a specific idea in mind when it comes to their special day.

 These cakes will give you an idea of the wide variety available and why when it comes to designing a cake for your day you can have something that has been made just for you.

 Some cake decorators like to work only with chocolate, others' only in traditional classic styles. I like to make something for everyone. It makes my job so much more creative when I can put together a cake which is as diverse as the client themselves.

  

I will add on further asap. Have a fantastic day!