Toby Bartels wrote:
Peter Jaros wrote:
Then (realizing YANAL) is there any risk in waiting until someone truly pushes the issue to register?
I don't believe that waiting weakens our claim, so long as it's true in fact that the name "Wikipedia" is associated with us and that we defend this. I mean that we would have to prove these facts regardless of whether we wait.
One potential risk in waiting is that we could be denied registration because somebody else had already registered the trademark themselves. The US Patent & Trademark Office generally will only check that there are no conflicting registered marks. They will not investigate to make sure that nobody else is using the mark. Instead, they provide "notice" to the public by publishing applications, and if someone raises legitimate objections, then the mark is not registered.
This may not be all that likely, but the possibility should at least be considered. Hopefully anyone using the term "Wikipedia" in a way that would conflict with our trademark will come to our attention pretty quickly. And they would almost certainly not be using the term in good faith. But if somebody did manage to register "Wikipedia" ahead of us, while the registration might eventually be overturned, it would take a lot more effort, including almost certainly a lawsuit.
And yes, I have checked for wiki-related trademarks. There are actually several, mostly around the term "wiki wiki". Nothing I could find conflicts with anything we could claim right now. The only computer-related filing was "Wikipad" for software, and that seems to have been abandoned without becoming registered.
--Michael Snow
Michael Snow wrote in part:
One potential risk in waiting is that we could be denied registration because somebody else had already registered the trademark themselves. The US Patent & Trademark Office generally will only check that there are no conflicting registered marks. They will not investigate to make sure that nobody else is using the mark. Instead, they provide "notice" to the public by publishing applications, and if someone raises legitimate objections, then the mark is not registered.
Hum. So how easy is it to keep track of these announcements of applications? (I assume that we'd be in a good position to object to registration.) And how easy is it to keep track of applications in other countries, such as the European Union?
-- Toby
Just in case this thread would discuss that point furthermore, and in case people would ignore it, the World Intellectual Property Organization (http://www.wipo.int/index.html.en) has probably every answers to your questions, not to mention the questions you would never have thought to ask. The USA are one of the 180 members of the organization. And if you're not a specialist of patents, you can browse the site for hours. For legal issues regarding the WikiMedia Foundation, you should always ask yourself : is this question special to WikiMedia because it is a unique project or, by any chance, is this a question truly common for any kind of activities including internet non-profit structures ? 95 % of the time you don't have to be creative because for 200 years, legal people have been working, alas. Just a question of : where's the info ?
Jean-Christophe Chazalette aka Aurevilly
----- Original Message ----- From: "Toby Bartels" toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 8:26 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Registering Wikimedia trademarks
Michael Snow wrote in part:
One potential risk in waiting is that we could be denied registration because somebody else had already registered the trademark themselves. The US Patent & Trademark Office generally will only check that there are no conflicting registered marks. They will not investigate to make sure that nobody else is using the mark. Instead, they provide "notice" to the public by publishing applications, and if someone raises legitimate objections, then the mark is not registered.
Hum. So how easy is it to keep track of these announcements of applications? (I assume that we'd be in a good position to object to registration.) And how easy is it to keep track of applications in other countries, such as the European Union?
-- Toby _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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