Marcel Winatschek

The Trademark Hustle

Some company bought the trademark to BlogFashion Kitchen and is now suing Ann-Christin, who’s been running the actual blog for three years. They want 600 euros every six months, retroactive, plus penalties up to a quarter-million if she doesn’t comply.

This is the shape of things now. Not theft, not innovation—just extraction dressed up in legal language. Register the variation, trademark something adjacent, find whoever had the original name but didn’t think about IP law, and wait for them to pay or fold. Most people will fold.

Twenty years of blogging and I’ve watched the internet get worse in ways that are almost boring. The platforms monopolized it. The ad networks squeezed it. But this is different. The cleverness isn’t in building anything. It’s in finding where regular people slip up and turning it into a threat.

Ann-Christin will probably pay. And the next person will get the same email next week.