Goldman Sachs sends a notice to Bitman Sachs on Domain Infringement

Posted by Shanker Rungta on April 5th, 2019

The crypto community is growing exponentially day by day and the bond Bitcoin buddies have is stronger than the ‘the apple fan club’. Shakespeare said ‘what is in the name’, A lot feels a major investment firm called Goldman Sachs based in New York. They dispatched a legal notice to Bitsachs, bases in Jaipur.

It is a crypto-currency startup and Goldman has accused them of violating trademark norms and infringing intellectual property. The meaning of infringement in layman’s terms means unauthorized use of a trademark which is already registered with someone else with the association of goods and or services in a manner to cause deception, confusion among the consumers. In the legal notice, it is written that Bitsachs is developing and claiming to be developing a crypto-currency called Bitsachs.

The registered trademark of Bitsachs is Bitman Sachs LLP and Goldman has accused them of the infringing Man-Sachs mark which is confusingly similar to Goldman Sachs. They have also accused Bitsachs of ‘infringing domain’.

Ashish Aggarwal, founder of Bitman Sachs said “We are not using Goldman anywhere in our brand name and Sachs is a very common surname in Germany. So I don't know how this could be an infringement of intellectual property or trademark.”

Founded last year, Bitman Sachs offers an exchange for peer-to-peer transactions and multi-crypto currency wallet by verified users. This exchange enables them to sell and buy crypto-currencies including ethereum, bitcoin, litecoin, and ripple.

The notice shot off by Goldman Sachs clearly states, “it provides extensive financial services for clients in currency, crypto-currency and block-chain technologies,”. The letter sent by the legal firm, Andrews Kurth Kenyon, on behalf of Goldman Sachs, said: “The infringing mark is confusingly similar to our clients’ famous Goldman Sachs’ mark, as is also partially evidenced by your use of a company name that copies the ‘Man Sachs’ name,”. This was "clearly intended to draw the association with Goldman Sachs” and could confuse its crypto-currency clients, the notice said.

Goldman said it was concerned that people may be confused into believing that Bitman Sachs may be licensed, authorized, sponsored or in some way affiliated with it.

According to the notice, Andrew Krew Kurth states that the consumers of Goldman Sachs will be confused or get deluded about the authorization, licensing and affiliation of Bitsachs with Goldman Sachs.

Bitsachs is all set to launch the stage for trading crypto assets and is not ready to take any chances. They have changed their name to Bitfeu. Ashish Aggarwal added that they are concentrating on business hence, they will not contest it. They will keep owning the domain bitsachs.com but will not be using it.

Ashish also clarified that they changed the name of Bitman Sachs to Bitsachs even before the notice came and also added that the company is not into developing a new crypto-currency.