Is it really that ridiculous? I'm not a lawyer, but I can see both sides to this.
The whole purpose of a trademark is to protect your brand from anything that could be construed as "confusingly similar". Spark and Sparc sound the same and are nearly identical in spelling, and they are both involved in the tech industry.
Whomever made the decision to send a C&D wasn't completely out of line in their reasoning. (Especially since it does not cost a whole lot to send a C&D. It will cost a lot more to take it to court, which I expect will be a factor in SparkFun's decision making process.)
That said, saying the two similar names are in the "tech industry" may not be sufficient justification for the trademark dispute any longer. The industry has so much breadth nowadays and there are so many businesses involved, as long as SparkFun can prove that there is enough differentiation between what they do and what Sparc does they can probably get around it (with some legal tapdancing).
This would probably not be an issue if SparkFun sold handmade chocolate candies :-)
The whole purpose of a trademark is to protect your brand from anything that could be construed as "confusingly similar". Spark and Sparc sound the same and are nearly identical in spelling, and they are both involved in the tech industry.
Whomever made the decision to send a C&D wasn't completely out of line in their reasoning. (Especially since it does not cost a whole lot to send a C&D. It will cost a lot more to take it to court, which I expect will be a factor in SparkFun's decision making process.)
That said, saying the two similar names are in the "tech industry" may not be sufficient justification for the trademark dispute any longer. The industry has so much breadth nowadays and there are so many businesses involved, as long as SparkFun can prove that there is enough differentiation between what they do and what Sparc does they can probably get around it (with some legal tapdancing).
This would probably not be an issue if SparkFun sold handmade chocolate candies :-)