Hello Charles,

I look forward to get to know about any updates in the Trademark registration.

The mission our WikiJournal is "to publish scholarly works with no cost for the authors, apply quality checks on submissions by expert peer review, and make accepted works available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity." [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group

wikijournal.org on the other hand is described as a "Free, independent, international, multilingual online journal" but I don't know any particular mission beyond that. However, Philip Krasilnik does not want to merge his project into ours. I think he is not interested in having his articles peer reviewed.

It is also worth mentioning that wikijournal.org only has one active editor ([Russian version] https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://ru.wikijournal.org/wiki/%25D0%25A1%25D0%25BB%25D1%2583%25D0%25B6%25D0%25B5%25D0%25B1%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B0%25D1%258F:%25D0%25A1%25D1%2582%25D0%25B0%25D1%2582%25D0%25B8%25D1%2581%25D1%2582%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B0&usg=ALkJrhhlVajU0Hze2Q08riKND46CPRNVMw, [original link] https://ru.wikijournal.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F:%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0 , [English version] https://en.wikijournal.org/wiki/Special:Statistics), presumably Philip himself.

Best regards,

Mikael

On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 9:31 PM, Charles M. Roslof croslof@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi Mikael,

Thank you for providing that additional information about wikijournal.org, and for removing the trademark registration from your grant application. I will look into the possibility of filing a trademark registration for WikiJournal.

I would be interested to learn more about the missions and goals of the WikiJournal project and wikijournal.org—how they are similar and how they differ.

Best,

Charles M. Roslof Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation croslof@wikimedia.org (415) 839-6885

NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 4:47 AM, Mikael Häggström < editor.in.chief@wikijmed.org> wrote:

...

Dear Charles M. Roslof and Woubzena Jifar,

It is necessary to already obtain trademark registrations, because an unrelated "WikiJournal" has already popped up, wikijournal.org, which appeared about 2 years after our project was created. I have tried to negotiate with the creator of that project (Philip Krasilnikov) about transfer of that .org domain to us, without so far being able to reach an agreement. It is possible that this name conflict will end up in legal proceedings later, so we find it necessary to as soon as possible secure our legal rights of the WikiJournal name, which is now in use in several external scholarly indexes and thereby not possible to change at all locations. It is also worth noting that Philip Krasilnikov made a rapid grant application using the WikiJournal name, attempting to receive $15,000 USD from the Wikimedia Foundation: Grants:Project/Philip/WikiJour nal.org/WikiJournal https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Philip/WikiJournal.org/WikiJournal

In any case, I have removed the trademark registration part from our rapid grant application https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal_2018. Also, the COPE membership part is removed because we can fund that membership through 2018 from our last grant.

Best regards,

Mikael Haggstrom

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 10:46 PM, Charles M. Roslof < croslof@wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Hi Mikael,

I've copied Woubzena Jifar, the Foundation's Rapid Grants Program Officer.

Thank you for reaching out about this. If "WikiJournal" is to be registered as a trademark, then it should be held by the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation has the established processes and resources to protect Wikimedia trademarks, and having "WikiJournal" as part of the Wikimedia trademark portfolio would avoid issues of confusion or conflict with other Wikimedia marks, such as "Wikibooks". I would also want we at the Foundation to handle the registration, to ensure it is consistent with the registrations of the other marks.

Registering a new trademark requires a commitment of resources beyond the initial filing fee. There may be opposition to the registration, which would require us to file responses, and we would need to have advice and support from outside experts through the registration process to ensure that everything is done properly. In addition, if it is necessary to register the mark in the United States then it may be necessary to register it in other countries as well.

Given this, I'm not sure it is appropriate to seek registration of the "WikiJournal" mark at this time. I know that there is a proposal for WikiJournal to become its own sister project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal—if that proposal is accepted, then we would certainly want to proceed with obtaining trademark registrations for the "WikiJournal" wordmark and whatever logo is chosen for the project. I don't know that it is necessary to obtain registrations before then, unless (1) there is significant risk of unrelated things called "WikiJournal" popping up and causing confusion with the Wikimedia WikiJournals, or (2) the WikiJournals are getting a significant amount of high-profile public attention.

I'd be happy to hear your additional thoughts and questions on this matter.

Best,

Charles M. Roslof Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation croslof@wikimedia.org (415) 839-6885

NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.

On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Mikael Häggström < editor.in.chief@wikijmed.org> wrote:

...

Dear legal team,

The WikiJournal User Group https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group is now a registered non-profit organization in Sweden, and we are now applying for funding for registering WikiJournal as a trademark in the United States. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal_2018

Is is all right that this trademark belongs to the WikiJournal User Group organization, or do you require it to belong directly to the Wikimedia Foundation?

Best regards,

Mikael Häggström