Are Ikea lawyers on a trademark crusade? The Swedish furniture giant Ikea has made two attempts in recent months to knock out a pair of high-profile websites where some of their biggest fans gather, Ikeahackers.com and Ikeafans.com. Both sites operated peacefully for several years, but now Ikea has demanded the websites must be transferred to its control.

Last month, the founder of Ikeahackers.com was served with a "cease and desist" letter ordering her to hand over the Web domain, eight years after Jules Yap (a pseudonym) founded it. After a massive online outcry, Ikea has backed away from its demands, at least for the time being.

The case of Ikeafans.com is similar, in that it experienced a long period of cooperation with the famed Swedish chain and is now locked in conflict with Ikea lawyers. After nearly two years of negotiations failed, the founders of Ikeafans.com, James and Susan Martin, lawyered up and prepared to plead their case in federal court. They filed a lawsuit (PDF), seeking a ruling that Ikea breached its contract with the owners and the "implied license" that it gave the site to use the trademarks.

Ikea has responded by moving to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it improperly named US entities that aren't the holders of Ikea trademarks.

The company also filed a lawsuit in the Netherlands naming the Martins personally. The two-pronged approach appears to be a strategy to move the case to the Netherlands, a far-away venue where the Martins may not have the financial wherewithal to litigate.

"This is clearly another attempt to bully our clients," said the Martin's attorney, Cabrach Connor. "They've never even been to The Netherlands."

Nine-year history

The Martins live in Montross, Virginia, a small town not far from Ikea's store in Woodbridge. They created their website in 2005 and co-existed with Ikea peacefully for nine years. Susan Martin writes most of the content for the site while James Martin, who worked in IT before Ikeafans became his full-time job, handles the technical side of things.

They disclosed the dispute to their readers in a June 26 blog post titled "IKEA Bullies":

"Despite our long and fruitful relationship, we received threats from IKEA that led to an ultimatum. IKEA demanded IKEAFANS.com turn the community domain over to IKEA unless we accepted the terms of IKEA’s offer," they wrote. "To protect IKEAFANS.com and our livelihood, and to lift the cloud of uncertainty that has been hanging over our heads since IKEA assumed its current adversarial stance, we regretfully filed a lawsuit against IKEA on May 20, 2014."

Connor said he couldn't disclose the details of those negotiations beyond what's outlined in the complaint. Ikea didn't respond to a request for comment about the Ikeafans litigation.

Letters from Ikea lawyers that are now evidence in the case make it clear that the company was concerned about ads appearing from competing furniture makers and installation services.

The site quickly won a readership enthusiastic about Ikea's products and news. Far from opposing the site, Ikea's public relations team worked with the Martins to "keep [them] in the loop of the latest and greatest from IKEA," according to the complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.

In September 2007, Ikea representatives visited the US and met with the Martins "to discuss how their companies would cooperate to their mutual benefit," states the Martins' suit:

In meetings held in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, IKEA and IKEAFANS agreed they would continue working together to promote IKEA products and services through the IKEAFANS community. The companies agreed to publish IKEA product information through the IKEAFANS.com website, IKEA agreed to provide advance copies of forthcoming IKEA catalogs and out-of-print copies of old catalogs, and the company agreed to grant access to behind-the-scenes information and exclusive interviews with IKEA representatives. IKEAFANS agreed to provide IKEA with customer feedback and other market data collected through its website. IKEA praised IKEAFANS and encouraged and authorized IKEAFANS to continue operating its website and conducting business in the same manner IKEAFANS had been operating.

In this way, Ikeafans argues, it was given permission that can't now be yanked away by a change of heart by Ikea. By the end of 2007, more than three dozen Ikea employees were registered members of Ikeafans and were active on its forums. Back at headquarters, Ikea execs "studied how to reap more commercial benefit" from the data Ikeafans was providing, including information about user traffic and "how to use social media online."

Ikea reaped "thousands of dollars" from "countless customers" that got their "information and inspiration" from the Ikeafans site. The "Kitchen Planning" forum was particularly active, with people discussing using Ikea materials for big-ticket kitchen remodeling.

The Martins were allowed to address an audience at Ikea events, and the company provided gift cards as rewards in contests they conducted.

But starting in April 2011, it all began to fall apart.

Changing relationship

That month, the Martins got a letter from a law firm regarding an additional site they owned, ikeawave.com. Susan Martin immediately got in touch with an Ikea contact, and the company responded: "It's all taken care of, someone will be in touch with you—probably from Sweden." They didn't hear anything else about it that year.

In January 2012, the relationship changed dramatically. "[U]se of the IKEA name and mark in a third party's business name cannot continue," Ikea's lawyers told Ikeafans in a letter. They wanted Ikeafans.com and related domains handed over and for Ikeafans to remove "all logos, symbols, or other source identifying indicia and images."

In the Martins' complaint, they note that the demand came shortly after Ikea launched its own online community, called "Share Space," which had traffic that was "a fraction of the volume of users at IKEAFANS.com."

"After trying to launch its own community, Ikea decided to take for itself what IKEAFANS had built," wrote the Martins' lawyer.

"Ikea is taking a very hard stance," said Connor, the Martins' lawyer, in an interview with Ars. "Their stance is not, 'Let's work it out,' it's 'stop what you're doing, and turn it all over to us.'"

Ikeafans "has been doing this for nine years, openly, and with their [Ikea's] blessing," said Connor, and it's unfair for the company to strip that away now. "That ad revenue is 100 percent of the Martins' livelihood. To the extent they ever needed permission from ikea, to do what they're doing, to use the domains they own—to have the look and feel of their site—they have had that for years. They sure don't like being treated this way."

Ikea has responded with a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that it improperly named Ikea's US operations rather than Europe. Ikeafans, meanwhile, has asked to file an amended complaint, with additional evidence that, at least for now, will be filed under seal.