Fanmail

Rukka Means Business!

Apparently not happy with the use of their rainwear at Chelsea's after a webpresence since 1999 Rukka decided to fire off an explosive email through their lawyers (doesn't everybody hate those weasels?). They could have just asked nicely to modify that page and I would have done that right away without any fuss. But noooo, they needed lawyers to do their dirty work:

From: Kukka Tommila <kukka.tommila@heinonen.com>
Reply-To: "kukka.tommila@heinonen.com" <kukka.tommila@heinonen.com>
To:"'regenpak@hotmail.com'" <regenpak@hotmail.com>
Subject: Infringement of trademark RUKKA in your website
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:58:01 +0300
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Dear Sirs,

We are writing to you on behalf of our clients
L-Fashion Group Oy, who are owners of the
trademark RUKKA. Our clients have noticed that
you are using their trademark RUKKA in your
website http://www.xs4all.nl/~zappy/raingear2.html.
Our clients' trademark registrations for RUKKA and
the sole right to use the trademark cover also
the Netherlands and therefore our clients have
the right to prohibit others from using their
trademark.

Based on the above, our clients demand that you
will immediately cease using the trademark RUKKA
in your website. If the infringement continues,
our clients will have to consider taking legal
actions and demanding compensation of damages
and legal fees.

We look forward to receiving within one week
your confirmation that the trademark has been
removed from your website and that you will not
any longer use the trad
emark RUKKA.

Yours sincerely,
Heinonen & Co, Attorneys-at-Law, Ltd

Kukka Tommila
Attorney-at-Law for L-Fashion Group Oy

- - - - -
Kukka Tommila, Attorney-at-Law
Heinonen & Co, Attorneys-at-Law, Ltd
Fredrikinkatu 61 A, 3rd floor
P.O. Box 671
FIN-00101 Helsinki
FINLAND
Tel. +358 9 25 300 625
Fax +358 9 694 4352
e-mail: kukka.tommila@heinonen.com
http://www.heinonen.com

This message is meant to the addressee only and
may contain confidential and legally privileged
information. Unauthorised disclosure or use
thereof is not permitted. If you are not the
addressee indicated in this message, please
destroy this message and kindly notify the
sender by e-mail.

To which I replied:

Dear Mr., Mrs. Tommila:

With great regret I received your missive of 14 October 2003. I fail to
understand how a company would want to harrass a happy user of their
excellent product. However, after careful consultation I decided to comply
with your demands and remove all reference to the trademark "Rukka" from the
page you mentioned, which has been online since 1999. As I will need some
time to actually perform this feat this should be realized no later than 1
December 2003. I am confident that the changes I shall make to my webpage
will be satisfactory for your client. Should this not be the case please do
not hesitate to contact me again, this time with a more detailed description
of the offending items.

Sincerely,

<my name>
Amsterdam

_________________________________________________________________
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So there you have it. I had to go through all this trouble to satisfy their megalomanous stance towards your poor hobbyist webmaster... As you can see all "Rukka" references on the offending page have been removed so there should be no more problems. But then, they're lawyers... good thing I got my Rukka coverall really cheap, so they didn't make any money off me!

Update: on the 19th of December I received a kind email from a Rainwear Lover from Finland:

Hi, one rainwear fan has brought the link of your 'fanmail' correspondance to the Finnish rainwear lovers community. We are rather shocked at this narrow minded reaction of this Finnish company ... I wonder if they have attacked other sites as well. There are quite a few with the name Rukka in a way or another... Anyway have a peaceful Xmas and hope you have good time with your hobby...

It transpires that "Kukka" is a ladies' name. In Finnish it means "flower", and for me it gets harder and harder not to joke about the name or play with it...

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