Who exactly is the market leader in textbook rentals is no longer just an academic debate. Online textbook rental service Chegg recently sent its rival BookRenter.co a lawyer letter (embedded below) demanding that it stop using the phrase “#1 In Textbook Rentals” on its Website. That is Chegg’s marketing slogan, and it even registered the phrase as atrademark in 2008.

But how can a company trademark being No. 1, especially in a nascent market that is evolving rapidly? In addition to Chegg and BookRenter, bigger players such as Barnes & Noble are getting into the textbook rental game. Chegg’s trademark isn’t going to do it much good in fighting off such encroachments. And even if Chegg is the biggest online textbook renter, the offline book rental market is much bigger with companies like Follett dominating.

Yep as you read these guys want to try to sue over a set of words that you honestly would have a hard time even proving due to the fact that many different things govern who is number 1 and who is not. Have we not learned anything when it comes to trademarks, copyrights, and patents; its just another way for people to try to choke out any creativity and push people to a bland existence.  So keep up the stupidity and keep me writing about the ignorance and strange things that you call business practice……Thanks alot!