Dr. Maria Artunduaga is someone who fights for what she loves. And she loved the name of her company.
But the founder and CEO of Mountain View-based Respira Labs had to let that go when another Silicon Valley company, Respira Therapeutics Inc., sent Artunduaga a letter demanding that her company cease using the name "respira."
Artunduaga had not anticipated that her startup, which produces a device to measure the acoustic frequencies in patients' lungs, would be confused with Respira Therapeutics, which is a pharmaceutical company in Palo Alto. Nor was she thrilled with the price of changing names — she estimates the rebranding cost her company more than $25,000 — a sizeable expense for a startup.
But Artunduaga saw that the dispute offered an chance to redefine her company. She ended up changing its name from Respira, which means "to breathe" in her native Spanish to Samay Health. In Quechua, an Indigenous language spoken in the Andes, samay means "to breathe deeply."
"It was painful (to have to change the name) ... but it turned out to be great," said Artunduaga, whose company won the first Bay Area
Inno Madness startup competition.
Artunduaga spoke with the Business Journal last week about renaming her startup. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did Respira Labs come to change its name to Samay Health?
During my most recent (time) at UC Berkeley I did a couple of business classes. At the time, it was a student project, and we decided to call it Respira. Because I'm from Colombia, right? Where I go, I always introduce myself as somebody who is from South America. So we decided to call the company Respira, which felt right.
At the time I consulted with an intellectual property lawyer. And their recommendation was that it wouldn't be necessary to file to register a trademark under the name of "Respira," because (it’s) an actual verb or a name that is commonly used.
(Respira Therapeutics’s lawyer sent) a cease-and-desist letter saying that (in terms of) potentially infringing their trade-mark, they had filed for documentation back in 2017 — exactly the year when I was starting up my company, at least as a student project. We just didn't realize they were going to go after a trademark. Then they got the trademark. They got it approved last year.
When we got the letter, we had to hire a lawyer who specializes in trademarks. We tried to pursue a coexistence agreement. They said, "no, we are not interested. And if you don't do this within the next five days, you're going to get into trouble.”
We finally decided, OK, we are going to rebrand, but give us at least six more months to do it because I'm a small startup. My budget is very tight, and I didn't have the money. I needed to go out and try to find the money to actually go ahead and rebrand; hire somebody to help us with the rebranding, the design, the colors, the story behind it, the lawyers.
I would have thought the same thing, that trademarking the word "respira" is almost like trademarking the word "blue" or something like that.
Exactly. But it’s interesting. I learned a lot about trademarks. Just because they are using Respira Therapeutics and a logo, you can actually trademark the name, the actual font. That's what they really have a trademark on, right?
But the thing is, in legal terms, you're going to sell a product. People can get confused by both of the names, even though we are extremely different in what we do.
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are trying to find a name for their company?
You do the checklist that you have at the beginning. Like, how do I incorporate my company? We have all these software platforms, do I think somebody would buy my (product)? Who has the same name, who has the trademark, who has filed solely and (can) spend a couple of hundred dollars to pay lawyers to do that?
It’s better to do it (before) they fall in love with a name. Because I was so in love with Respira, I didn't want to change. (But) now I have a chance to tell the story again.
