{"id":416751,"date":"2025-09-11T21:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/416751\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T21:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:11:14","slug":"i-just-wanted-to-do-a-caring-thing-for-my-wife-but-tinder-served-me-a-cease-and-desist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/416751\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I just wanted to do a caring thing for my wife, but Tinder served me a cease and desist’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I initially laughed when I got the email because it seemed so silly”Rhys Kentish and his wife Eliffar(Image: Rhys Kentish\u00a9 SWNS)<\/p>\n

Tinder has filed an intellectual property infringement notice alleging its brand was copied without permission – by a man who built an app to celebrate his wife.<\/p>\n

Rhys Kentish, 29 – who met Eliffar, 27, after they both studied at the University of Manchester<\/a> – developed a dating-style app<\/a> called Tender: Couple Photos & Game where the only option is to swipe right on his wife Eliffar.<\/p>\n

The dating giant<\/a>, which is owned by Match Group, has now claimed that Rhys has breached its intellectual property (IP).<\/p>\n

In an email received on Friday, September 5, Tinder said that using the term ‘swipe’ on the app infringed its trademark over the word.<\/p>\n

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The email also complained that the name Tender was too similar to Tinder, which could therefore confuse consumers.<\/p>\n

Rhys, an app developer in East London, said: “I initially laughed when I got the email because it seemed so silly.<\/p>\n

“Aside from being a little funny, it’s quite disheartening to have this corporate beast come after me when I’m just trying to do a kind, caring thing for my wife.”<\/p>\n

Rhys Kentish and his wife Eliffar on their wedding day(Image: Rhys Kentish\u00a9 SWNS)<\/p>\n

Rhys and Eliffar first met six years ago at a mutual friend\u2019s birthday party after both had studied at the University of Manchester<\/a>. They married this May, but Tender isn\u2019t the first app Rhys has built for his wife.<\/p>\n

In August last year, he created a bespoke app to propose – sending Eliffar on a treasure hunt around sentimental London spots that ended with him down on one knee.<\/p>\n

Rhys said: “I’ve always enjoyed making cheeky little apps to make the internet a bit of a brighter place. So, when I decided to propose to Eliffar, I made an app that would send her all over London to places that meant something.<\/p>\n

“She loves the New York Times daily puzzles, so she would solve one to reveal the next location and then there were little challenges at each spot.<\/p>\n

“The last challenge just said ‘Say yes’ and I got down on one knee to pop the question.”<\/p>\n

Rhys created Tender in early July after Eliffar showed him a tweet joking about how great it would be to have a dating app that only showed pictures of your spouse.<\/p>\n

Inspired, he built Tender: Couple Photos & Game and released it on the Apple App Store a week later.<\/p>\n

Less than eight weeks later, Rhys received an email from Apple saying Tinder had complained that his app “infringes its intellectual property rights.”<\/p>\n

The email said: “We received a notice from Tinder LLC (Match Group) (Tracer) (“Claimant”) that Claimant believes the app listed below infringes on its intellectual property rights.<\/p>\n

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“The application infringed Tinder’s trademark and common law rights. In particular, the application makes unauthorized use of “Swipe”, “Swipe Left” and “Swipe Right” in its app description and marketing materials.<\/p>\n

“These phrases are distinctive identifiers of Tinder, and their unauthorized use is likely to mislead consumers into believing that the application is affiliated with, sponsored by or authorized by Tinder.<\/p>\n

“In addition, the name of the application, “Tender”, is confusingly similar to Tinder’s well-known “Tinder” trademark. This similarity further heightens the likelihood of consumer confusion and misassociation with Tinder’s brand.”<\/p>\n

Rhys responded to the complaint and has started the process of changing the term swipe on the app to pan.<\/p>\n

But he is also disputing the claim that the names are too similar and that it would cause “customer confusion.”<\/p>\n

Rhys said: “I got back to them after the weekend and agreed to take ‘swipe’ off of the app even though I do think it’s a bit much to trademark that.<\/p>\n

“But I’m disputing their claim that the names are too similar. My app is called Tender: Couple Photos & Game, whereas Tinder comes up on the app store as Tinder Dating App: Meet & Date.<\/p>\n

“I feel that anyone looking for Tinder would be able to tell the difference and hopefully wouldn’t get confused!<\/p>\n

“I even use a different icon, my app being a heart and theirs being a flame.”<\/p>\n

Rhys is now waiting to hear further news after he responded on Monday, September 8.<\/p>\n

Tinder has been reached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I initially laughed when I got the email because it seemed so silly”Rhys Kentish and his wife Eliffar(Image:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1232,455,53,20404,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-416751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-money","9":"tag-real-life","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-the-university-of-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115187724472667430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}