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THE SMART OVEN REPAIR CHOICE

Which is it? Deceptively Similar or Substantially Identical. We say neither!

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This webpage is not "OVENMAN®" Or "SA OVENMAN®"

Exists because of The Appliance Specialist at Glenelg Pty Ltd Trading as "OvenMan® - Adelaide"

CONFUSION IN THE MARKET

We registered the domain name Adelaide Oven Guy™ August 2016 ! That's when we learned The Appliance Specialist at Glenelg (TASG) registered the business name Adelaide Oven Specialist (January 2016). TASG gave up this strategy when they learnt we already owned the domain name Adelaide Oven Specialist (August 2013). Then in March 2016 having checked that the domain name and business name were both available TASG registered Adelaide Oven Man and then in July 2016 they registered OvenMan Adelaide. Not sure exactly why, but we suspect it had something to do with Google rankings. As Adelaide's only truly dedicated Oven repairer we now face a more sinister future with a competitor who's moral vicissitude lacks common regard for how they operate, be it via passing off, lying, unconscionable conduct, slight of hand etc.

So we continue to work at staying the No. 1 dedicated oven repair service in Adelaide, and work at taking TASG to task wherever the opportunity presents itself. While other competitors market Oven Repairs to the broader market, most don't copy "Fixed Price" Oven Only" and Search Engine Results Page (SERP) titles with Adelaide Oven Repair, Oven Repairs, Adelaide Appliance Specialist preceding their own business name.

Registered Business names and Domains

Ovenman Adelaide might like to sound genuine; but facts are facts!

WHY THE HOO-HA?

The Hoo-ha is because we have a competitor who has actively sought to use 'unfair competition' practices to misrepresent their business as ours: Adelaide Oven Repairs™! Wherever OVENMAN® or SA OVENMAN® are referred to on our website, we are not intending to suggest any affiliation, connection, co-operation, association or otherwise. In point of fact we are trying to make sure our customer when they are dealing with us and when they aren't.

We have registered many domain names and business names and published many trademarks to help cordon off and defend our brand from the misappropriation efforts by other competitors. Those who wish to gain advantage by causing confusion in the market place by misrepresent themselves.

We are the first in the Appliance Repair industry in Adelaide to segment our business Adelaide Appliance Repairs™ into specialised fields, such as: Washing Machine Repairs, Dishwashing Machine Repairs, Oven Repairs and so on. We did the back in 2010. And started to market more specifically to these specialisations. Over time we have divested ourselves of some and focused on Oven Repairs.

Being an electrician by trade, and not wanting to do work outside our licensing, we passed gas repairs onto "The Appliance Specialists at Glenelg", unaware we were providing insight into our business practices and confidential information so these usurpers could ultimately bite the hand that feed them.

Alas we learnt too late that they were trying to register business names that might compete head on with us. "Adelaide Oven Specialists"! Luckily for us, we had already registered this domain name and had protected ourselves from this first attempt. Sadly their next attempt "Ovenman Adelaide" we missed. We'd registered the name "Adelaide Oven Guy". Unfortunately Ovenman Adelaide never even dawned on us!

Now they have registered their name as a trademark and are demanding we get rid ourselves of any and all registered domains, business names, published trademarks that have any reference to OvenMan. Most recently they have used our Trademark and Business name Oven Fix™ as a number plate on one of their vehicle. They demand we stop when they continued to expand their intrusion on our brands.

We've registered many business and domain names in order to protect our unique position as Adelaide's leading dedicated Oven Repairer. Sadly google can't determine if the searcher (you) want Oven Repairs the business or any oven repairer! So they have stopped treating our business name as us, but rather one of a few oven repairers.

As a result we registered most alternatives with a "Z" replacing the "S". Great idea in theory, sadly googles most recently algorithms are treating this as a spelling mistake. So back to the drawing board.

Click to see our logo timeline

Adelaide Whitegoods Specialists Circa 2010

Adelaide Oven Repairs™ Circa 2013

Adelaide Oven Repairs™ Circa 2021

Adelaide Oven Repairs® Circa 2024

Oven Man Repairs™

Truth is it's not just "OvenMan®"

OVEN MAN... REPAIRS

Priority Use! We were well established long before these usurpers registered thier domains, business names and trademarks. While we haven't registered our trademarks with IP Australia yet, we still have common law rights to all our Trademarks because we have priority of use. We were the first to actively work and market our oven repair business here in Adelaide.

www.theovenmanadelaide.com.au is but one of our many domains! All's fair in love and war they say; they use a domain name, we use a domain name. They use our business name in their Google search results title in their 'ad' claiming it is nothing more than a description of what they do; we use descriptive words to say what we do. According to our competition, they are only using "Adelaide Oven Repairs" to describing what they do. But as a customer, which name stick out to you? There is no possible way our competitor believes they are just describing what the do! Click the images below to get a full size view.

The following are examples of hidden "Adelaide Oven Repairs" references that Google can use to determine their page ranking for those key words. They have hidden these behind the images on their webpages for both OvenMan and The Appliance Specialist at Glenelg... which is their company name: THE APPLIANCE SPECIALIST AT GLENELG PTY LTD. You might say to yourself that we are doing exactly the same here, by using their trademark, Google will use these keywords to improve our page ranking. And YES that is correct.

Twice now THE APPLIANCE SPECIALIST AT GLENELG PTY LTD (TASG) have tried to sic their lawyers on us for trademark infringement that were finally advertised on 15 Nov 2022. Twice now they have failed to take the matter to conclusion. Not because their trademark registration doesn't allow them the right, due to our infringements; but because they come to the court with unclean hands, which is a legal concept that requires all those seeking relief via the courts, must do so with clean hands! The trouble is they have been infringing our common law trademark rights for many years before their final trademark registrations. Click the images below to get a full size view.

If they were using real language to describe what they do, it would be; Oven Repairs in Adelaide not Adelaide Oven Repairs

How to stop competitors causing confusion in the market place. Apart from going to court and spending lots of money to have them stop, not very much really. And spending that money means we have stopped only one of many. We would need to do it time and again to stop others from doing the same thing.

The Oven Man Adelaide is a domain we hope to use to convince others “Passing Off” under whatever guise means we will have to use what methods are available to us to control/manage this issue.

Right now that means publishing the problem and hope that customers will take the time to read the information and hopefully become better informed and be able to decide for themselves who is going to be a better choice for them.

AARDVARK

Back in the print media days, if you wanted to get a leap over the competition in the Yellow pages you could use a name like AArdvark Oven Repairs with double A’s in your business name to get listed first. This alphabetic strategy morphed on the internet search world into Exact Match Domains (EMD’s). The early bird would get the worm if they secured the EMD that related to their business activity. It’s been so successful that others wanting to rise in the search results ranking started using the business name of others and called the practice every day language rather than the true activity of “passing off”.

Metropolitan Plumbing is about the test this in court against Sharpe Electrical. We wait with baited breath!

OVEN MAN REPAIRZ, OVENMAN REPAIR, OVENMAN REPAIRS

What we learnt long ago is that the derivative thinking of our competitor, meant they would always be trying to copy our innovations. We segmented our business from the overarching category ‘Appliance Repairs’ to ‘Oven Repairs’ long before others, including Google, who considered this was not a business category in its own right.

So we have registered the business name Oven Man Repairz, Ovenman Repairs, Ovenman Repair and other and secured a number of related domains as a defensive position. We bought the domain www.adelaideovenguy.com.au before our competitor considered copying our business segmentation model. Oven Man, grrr how many permutation of a name do you have to lock down in order to stop your competitors. We bought Oven Specialists, Oven Guy and about a hundreds others, but not Oven Man. Not that buying the domain Oven Man would have been the end of it. These guys would have kept going till they found a name that would work. They registered the business name Adelaide Oven Specialists thinking they have found gold! Only to learn that we already owned the domain name.

It make it difficult to compete in a market place where no rules apply !

Another example of how they will use our business name to get google results.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

A business name should be just that! A business name only. Google states quite clearly that using unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of the business profile. So when Ovenman® uses additional unnecessary information in their business name like "Adelaide"- "Oven Repairs" & "Oven Repairs & Replacement" they using black-hat methods to get a boost to their ranking! Click the images below to get a full size view.

'Fair Use' Exception !

Review and Critique!

DECEPTIVELY SIMILAR OR SUFFICIENTLY DIFFERENT?

We have been put on notice that the publishing of names, logo's, and now registered trademarks are "...customers searching for our client are to be confused or deceived between the genuine website of our client, and your website..."

This page in particular has been cited as containing much of the material causing the alleged infringement of their trademark(s). So in an effort to not cause any confusion we have dealt with this notice by providing a 'review and criticism' of those alleged infringement(s).

The trademarks cited as being infringed are:

OVENMAN Registration advertised 15 Nov 2022
Registration advertised 15 Nov 2022

These two examples have been copied directly from the search results: https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/quick/result?q=ovenman

The most important statement we can make here is to inform any customers that finding any of these trademark(s) on any pages of our website are there only to represent the trademarks that we are not associated with or in anyway do we offer repair services on behalf of that trademark owner.

We own the business name SA Oven Man and have published a trademark (not registered) but we believe that in no way can be confused with our competitors trademark(s).

We have been trading since late 2010, and unless anyone can prove us incorrect, we were the first to publish, offer, trade and build a reputation in Adelaide as an oven repairer offering fixed prices. Every other business that is offering fixed price for oven repairs in Adelaide has done so after our public publications. This goes to the issue of "Seniority".

Business Name
Trademark
Registered Trademark
Web Domain
Company Name

This above question, in conjunction with the wild-wild-west or w.w.w. or world-wide-web, known as the internet, makes answering that question akin to finding a particular grain of sand on a beach!

Copyright plays a big part of this overall issue. And the first to publish original works, such as books, drawings, music, performances and images automatically achieves copyright. When does a 6 month old trademark have the right to broadly prohibit past business brands, registrations, domain names etc. from being displayed? That will be the ongoing waste of our precious time trying to defend our early market entry against a new competitor.

Current

Adelaide Oven Repairs

Oven Man Repairz

Past

Adelaide Oven Repairs

Oven Repairz

Adelaide Oven Fix

Adelaide Oven Specialists

Adelaide Oven Guy

Adelaide Oven Repairman

SA Oven Man

Oven Guru

Oven Repairs Adelaide

DIY oven repairs? Don't bother! Get the best oven repair service in Adelaide.

Oven Fix

Which is it?

Is it "deceptively similar" or "substantially identical"

IF YOU WERE THE JUDGE??

Would you agree? Are these two trademarks substantial identical and deceptive similar?

We own the business registration and domain name.

They own the registered IP Australia trademark.

More branding detail

Elements within our branding

OUR BRAND DESIGNS

When you see these symbols they are parts of our story and evolution as we attempt to keep up with Google constantly changing criteria for ranking well on organic search results. These symbols have meanings, mostly they are taken from the conceptual idea for representing the dials on an oven which allow you to control function, temperature or time. The Z is an electrical designation for impedance. Almost the first thing you lean at trade school as an electrician is (Ohms Law Ω) represented as "V=IR". (Impedance Z) is "Z=V/I". We have tried to build into our brands, logos and other marketing materials unique identifiers that help build our reputation in the market place. By being the first to publish these logos, symbols and brands copyright protects the true author from others using these without authorisation. They become trademarks when published and should act as customers assurance that they are dealing with the intended business.

Oven Dial Symbol

Z Oven Temperature Symbol

Adelaide Oven Guy or Adelaide Oven Man

Ovenman Adelaide we aint!

ADELAIDE OVENMAN REPAIRZ

What chances has anyone looking to get their oven repaired finding the actual business they're looking for, when Consumer and Business Affairs, IP Australia, ACCC, ASIC, and Google all have different rules about who rightfully owns a business?

If you hoped to get us, then 'Oven Man' we're not! The truth is, not very many customers will search for Adelaide Oven Man any more than Adelaide Oven Guy unless someone spends some serious advertising dollars.

We hope from the information provided on this page you (hopefully our customer) will be able to make a more informed decision about who is and who isn't Adelaide Oven Repairs.

This page is about showing how “The Appliance Specialists at Glenelg Pty Ltd” trading as “Adelaide Oven Man” is using ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’ to trick some of our customers into using their services. And how the latest registration of the above trademarks are a continuation of that process.

However, we shouldn't just single out one appliance repairer trying to appropriate customer via online advertising. The oven repair, installation and cleaning services segment is becoming more and more competitive. Call centres are popping up all the time. Hoping to get you to book through them so they can then on-sell leads to companies like ourselves. This is just adding another layer of fees attached to the final cost of the job.

The reality is that internet competition is hotting up. Not many appliance repair businesses were online in any serious way back in 2010. Back then very few of our competitors were interested in the tiny little ‘Oven’ segment. By late 2010 we realised oven repairs was our strength. So we set out to improve our google rankings and in December 2010 we submitted our first sitemap to google. lick the images below to get a full size view.

Who’d have thought only 5 or 6 years later The Appliance Specialists at Glenelg Pty Ltd, who we wrongly (in hind sight) sent our Gas Oven Repair work to, would use every dirty trick in the book to muscle in on our core business: Oven Repairs. Wish we had a better crystal ball when we tried to register relevant business names and domains names back when we started.

So here we are now, heavily entrenched in cyber competition and who knows, not too far down the road we might actually be very interested in “GUY” versus “MAN” and maybe we’ll be required to register the business name just to protect our position.

If we had a dollar for every time a customer has answered the door and said “ahhh… you’re the “oven guy” I’d be a rich man. Ha, that’s a lie; at a dollar a pop I’d be broke; but I’ve heard this term a lot! So we bought the domain just in case it became popular and one of our competition tried to sneak up on us. Thought we’d been pretty prudent and covered our bases by collecting a range of similar names such as:

Adelaide Oven Repairman
Adelaide Oven Guy
Adelaide Oven Specialists
Oven Guru
Adelaide Oven Service
Oven Repairs Adelaide
SA Ovenman
Ovenman Repairz
Oven Repairz

67 Domain names with Oven in it and still counting. You’d think we’d have covered our bases. But no! Our not so friendly rivals who decided it wasn’t enough to have us giving them our gas work, they decided they wanted it all for themselves! We stopped using them when we learnt they’re not really as licensed gas fitter as they make out to be.

Confusion in the market place

Or Passing Off, depending on your view point

TO BE EXPECTED

It’s legal term is “Passing Off” or “S18! Definition: The tort of passing off applies where there is a representation that a person’s goods or services are those of someone else. And while it was supposedly Inadvertent, this is the advert that started the ball rolling!

If you zoom in you will have trouble deciding which link to click to get Adelaide Oven Repairs. Is it the top one or bottom one? Customers have complained when they have called to get jobs finished to learn it wasn’t us who they booked with. We sent an email and expressed our disappointment in their behaviour, given we once sent our gas oven repair work to them. Their response was a tongue in cheek; oops sorry… ‘it was an innocent mistake by our web developer’! Yeah right! Click the images to get a full size view.

And so, not quite a year down the road and several attempts later and The Appliance Specialists at Glenelg Pty Ltd have finally given birth to a business name/domain legally registered; Adelaide Oven Man. Oops, Opps sorry I don’t think so! Their email above is now shown to be pretty disingenuous!

Registered Business names and Domains

Ovenman Adelaide might like to sound genuine; but facts are facts!

THE MOST TELLING FACT

Business Name	Registration Date
Adelaide OvenMan	06 Jul 2016
Oven Man Adelaide	17 Mar 2016
The Appliance Specialist in Adelaide	23 Feb 2016
Adelaide Oven Specialist	11 Jan 2016

Who deserves the right to be recognised as Adelaide Oven Repairs. “The Appliance Specialists at Glenelg Pty Ltd” has as of the 12/01/2016 registered Adelaide Oven Specialists! However they have since learnt that AdelaideOvenSpecialists.com.au was owned by us back in 12/08/2013. What they were trying to do is find a Google domain name that would rank as well as Adelaide Oven Repairs. They have gone on to register:

We have notified The Appliance Specialists at Glenelg Pty Ltd that they are causing “confusion in the market place”. We wrote to the them about our concerns and asked them to stop using business names so similar to ours: Adelaide Oven Repairs (Registered by us 30th of July 2012) in their business names, domain names, adwords titles. We qualified that customers of ours were being tricked into thinking they were us.

Registered Domain Names

Adelaide OvenMan is just another poor attempt at imitation! On the 14th of June 2016 Andrew Chessman of “THE APPLIANCE SPECIALIST AT GLENELG PTY LTD” proceeded to register the domain names Ovenmanadelaide.com.au and on the 27th of June 2016 and www.adelaideovenman.com.au even after being advised they were causing confusion in the market place.

They now operate the website AdelaideOvenMan.com.au in a poor attempt to further confuse our brand. Sadly, this has meant we have had to register further domain names in an attempt to protect our brand and stop customers from being tricked into using a service that is not really who they intended.

So beware, there is only one “Adelaide Oven Repairs” and the other wannabe names are just that. Second rate imitations.

Trademark Registration

Updates on the past appropriation of our core business

INFRINGEMENT NOTICE

25th of May 2023 we have received an official solicitors letter putting us on notice that we have infringed their Client's trademarks!

Their letter sets out that their Client have been trading under the Trade Mark, including registration of the business names Adelaide Ovenman and Oven Man Adelaide using the domain name www.ovenmanadelaide.com.au since 2016. We note they excluded the earlier registered business name Adelaide Oven Specialist registered some 3 months prior. This is because we had already secured the domain name of the same name back in 2013.

Here we are in May 2023 being told to remove all ovenman links for for fear we are damaging their newly won reputation of 6 months. Because the trademarks, in our opinion, cannot be considered linked their 2016 registrations/trading. They encompass very different territories.

Use oven man in the Trade Mark Search tool and there registration does not show. Why, because they have created a new word "Ovenman". Which means IP Australia only recognises a specific word/mark. If you search "oven" you get 318 results. None of which are "ovenman". Our application of 2015 which has lapsed has been listed in this search. "The Oven Repairman" shows up. But not "ovenman" or "sa ovenman". Which asks the question; is ovenman causing confusion in the market place now that their market place has expanded to include the whole of Australia rather than Adelaide. And does their new word have any appropriation of the business name "Oven Man Adelaide"? Even ASIC wont let the name 'Adelaide Oven Man' be registered because the prior registration of "Oven Man Adelaide" because would be a contravention of the rights belonging to "Adelaide Oven Man". Hence why the company registered "Adelaide Ovenman" because the database considers the the work "ovenman" a newly formed name.

Trademarks Australia have this wonderful useless catchall: is it Deceptively Similar or Substantially Identical or Sufficiently Different! Which is what? Got to go to court to get an answer to that question. So should Ovenman be allowed when The Oven Repairman is in the same market place and qualfied as doing the same work. IP Australia considered this and allowed the registration. It's not hard to imagine what The Oven Repairman is or does. Ovenman could be anything from a cleaner, to some one who installs ovens or repairs oven or bakes in ovens; and just for fun, a book called Ovenman. But is the public going to be confused when trying to find an oven repairer? Well that's the reason for the notice. The Appliance Speclialist at Glenelg, who by the way aren't at Glenelg, want to test their newly registered rights.

Our aim here was to review and critique the claim that we have infringed the trademarks belonging to The Appliance Specialist at Glenelg Pty Ltd. It is our intention that we have published this here to inform customers who are potentially confused about which company is which. We also believe that our right to do so falls under the 'fair use' exception and is not intended in anyway to act as a marketing tool to improve our google ranking. In point of fact, we believe this information may be detrimental by highlighting another local repairer.

But most importantly to allow those who might be interested to form their own opinion about the rights and wrongs of this matter. Ultimately the searcher gets to vote with their feet.