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Posted on August 3, 2022 By Apollo LIMS Blog

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Zazzle Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustryInternet, online retailing
Founded2005; 19 years ago (2005)
FoundersRobert Beaver
Bobby Beaver
Jeff Beaver

Headquarters
Redwood City, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Robert Beaver (CEO)
Websitezazzle.com
Zazzle
Type of site
E-commerce
Available inEnglish, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, Swedish, Korean, Canadian French, Dutch
OwnerZazzle Inc.
URLzazzle.com
Launched2005
Written inC#/ASP.NET
[1]

Zazzle is an American online marketplace that allows designers and customers to create their own products with independent manufacturers (clothing, posters, etc.), as well as use images from participating companies. Zazzle has partnered with many brands to amass a collection of digital images from companies like Disney, Warner Brothers and NCAA sports teams.[2][3] Zazzle claims to have over 300 million unique products listed on the site. It now one of the most popular platforms for customizing[4] apparel in the USA.

History

Zazzle was launched from their garage by Robert, Bobby, and Jeffrey Beaver, and went live in 2005.[5] The company received an initial investment of US$16 million in July 2005 from Google investors John Doerr and Ram Shriram,[3] and an additional investment of US$30 million in October 2007.[6]

The site was recognized by TechCrunch as 2007's "best business model" in its first annual Crunchies awards,[7] and has been noted by industry experts, such as B. Joseph Pine, for its easy-to-use technology.[8] It is based in Redwood City, California.

Zazzle.com offers digital printing, and embroidered decoration on their retail apparel items, as well as other personalization techniques and items.

In 2022, Zazzle engaged Citigroup Inc. and Barclays Plc to facilitate preparations for a potential initial public offering (IPO) this year.[9]

Custom postage stamp printing

Starting in 2005, Zazzle offered custom postage stamp printing in a partnership with the United States Post Office (USPS).[10] However, on May 15, 2018, Zazzle stopped the custom stamp printing due to new regulations by the USPS.[11]

Controversy

Pi trademark incident

In May 2014, Zazzle removed thousands of products containing the Greek letter pi (π) from being offered for sale on its website.[12] This was done in response to a cease-and-desist letter sent on behalf of Brooklyn-based artist Paul Ingrisano, who holds the trademark (U.S. Reg. No. 4473631) for the symbol 'π.' (pi followed by a period).[13] Zazzle's content management team initially defended its ban on Zazzle's user forums, despite complaints from Zazzle sellers that Ingrisano's specific trademark did not appear to apply to their designs.[14] Following the backlash from users, however, Zazzle reversed course on May 30 and began restoring products featuring the letter pi that had been initially removed.[12]

Font lawsuit

In August 2022, graphic designer Nicky Laatz sued Zazzle, saying that the company had secretly purchased a one-user license for her trademarked and copyright-protected fonts and then made them available to all of its hundreds of thousands of designers and tens of millions of users, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of profits for Zazzle from products that incorporated her fonts.[15][16][17] The lawsuit claims that Zazzle had recommended her font as their second most popular font, and that five of Zazzle's twelve most-popular business cards, as well as several of its most-popular wedding invitations used her fonts.[15][18][19]

Zazzle responded by stating that Zazzle had asked to purchase a server license from Laatz, but that Laatz never responded.[17] Zazzle responded in court by asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed based on the fact that fonts cannot be copyrighted in the US.[17] Software to create fonts can be copyrighted, and Laatz said that she hand-coded designs in the font-creation software, but Zazzle's lawyers contend that she deceived the copyright office about this and created the font with a font program.[17][18]

References

  1. ^ "zazzle.com Traffic Statistics". Alexa. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  2. ^ "About Us". zazzle.ca.
  3. ^ a b Olsen, Stefanie (2005-07-18). "Google investors find new project". ZDNet. Retrieved 2008-09-13.
  4. ^ "Top 10 Popular Platforms for Customizing Apparel and Accessories". Styled. Retrieved 2024-01-26.
  5. ^ Dishman, Lydia (2013-10-18). "How Two Companies Partnered To Turn Design-On-Demand Into High Growth Retail". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-12-25.
  6. ^ Michael, Arrington (2007-07-27). "Zazzle rumor: big hedge fund investment". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-07.
  7. ^ "2007 Crunchies: The Winners". TechCrunch. 2008-01-19. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
  8. ^ Antonucci, Mike (2008-02-08). "Customize your Valentine's Day gifts". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
  9. ^ "Ecommerce Firm Zazzle Is Said to Tap Citi, Barclays for IPO". Bloomberg.com. 2022-02-18. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  10. ^ "Zazzle It". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  11. ^ "What Happened to Zazzle Custom Postage?". WeddingStamps.US. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  12. ^ a b Poulsen, Kevin (2014-05-31). "This Guy Trademarked the Symbol for Pi and Took Away Our Geeky T-Shirts". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 2014-05-31. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  13. ^ Wicksell, Dustin (2014-06-07). "Man Trademarks Pi, Internet Furious". The Inquisitr. Archived from the original on 2014-06-09. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  14. ^ O'Neil, Lauren (2014-06-02). "Artist trademarks 'Pi' symbol, enrages the web". CBCNews. Archived from the original on 2014-06-03. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  15. ^ a b Baron, Ethan (2022-08-25). "Redwood City e-commerce firm run by family of Stanford grads accused of making fortune off stolen fonts - Trickery made Zazzle hundreds of millions of dollars, lawsuit claims". San Jose Mercury News.
  16. ^ "Zazzle Sued for Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Stealing Intellectual Property, Says Bartko Law Firm". August 25, 2022.
  17. ^ a b c d Murphy, Heather Tal (2023-01-24). "Into the Sparkly Heart of Zazzle's Font War". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2024-09-04. In filings pushing to dismiss the suit, Zazzle blasted back that a font cannot be protected by copyright in the United States. Multiple lawyers verified this. ... "The output of an A.I. is not copyrightable," said Mr. Ochoa, unless human creativity is combined with AI. Similarly here, you can protect font software by copyright, he said, but only if more than a minimal amount of human creativity, such as coding, played a role in producing it.
  18. ^ a b "Laatz v. Zazzle, Inc., 22-cv-04844-BLF | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2024-08-12.
  19. ^ "Zazzle Avoids Summary Judgment on Some Printing-Font Suit Claims". bloomberglaw.com. 2024-01-10.

See Also

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazzle

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