Guess what I got in my inbox. An update from Batteriser! It is not posted at the Indiegogo site (yet), so I thought I'd share it with you ;-)
Dear Supporters,
First of all, we would like to thank you for being patient with us as we have been trying to get our products shipped to our customers. To that end, we would like to share some important information with you. Energizer has initiated a lawsuit against our company arguing that the name Batteriser is similar to Energizer. In their opinion, we are taking advantage of Energizer’s reputation. Batteriser is a unique name we chose to emphasize the rise in the voltage of a Battery, hence Batte-Riser. The name Energizer does not contain the words battery or riser, and is derived from just one verb: Energize. The only similarity is the "ER" suffix in both names and that to them seems to imply we are taking advantage of their reputation.
Although our legal team believes that Energizer’s does not have a case they can win, there are other realities we must consider. We are a small startup with limited resources, and Energizer is a huge corporation. We do not want to waste our resources on a lengthy legal battle, so we have decided to change the Batteriser product name. To be clear, this litigation from Energizer is only related to the naming of Batteriser and has nothing to do with our technology and IP portfolio.
We are working to expedite the negotiation process with Energizer so that we may continue with the more important work of shipping our orders to all of our customers. At this point, we already have the Batteriser name and logo design on all of our packaging, cases, wrappers, and brochures as well as the Batteriser product itself. As a result, we will now have to redesign and retool all of these items with our new product name and logo. We are working on minimizing the effect this change has on our shipping schedule. As mentioned in our last communication, our CEO Bob Roohparvar is currently in East Asia working to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.
Recently, we were also notified that many customers had problems accessing certain features on our website. Upon further investigation, we realized that our website had been hacked. Someone had entered a few lines of code that blocked our customers from seeing the videos and Q&A section of our site, as well as blocking them from placing orders. That issue is now resolved, but It is very obvious to us that we are under attack. Given that we plan to disrupt the $15 billion/year battery industry and drastically reduce the number of batteries in landfills, we are not surprised. We are grateful that we are not fighting this fight alone, and that these delays have not deterred our supporters. To be clear, we are not saying or implying that Energizer had anything to do with the hacking of our website; but merely that we are being attacked on many fronts.
We will be announcing the new product name, unveiling our new logo and supplying further details in the coming weeks. We want to sincerely apologize for the delays and want to assure you that we are doing everything in our power to get the product to you. We appreciate your continued patience and look forward to delivering our product that will make the planet a better place for our children. Thank you so much for your continued support!
Yours truly,
The Batteroo Team