________________________________
De: Mike Godwin <mgodwin(a)wikimedia.org>
Para: Joaquim Mariano da Costa Neto <joaquimmariano(a)yahoo.com.br>
Enviadas: Terça-feira, 23 de Dezembro de 2008 20:53:56
Assunto: Re: WF Trademarks - Unauthorized registration attempt in Brazil
Joaquim,
Can you determine what we need to do to obtain wikipedia.com.br? If the registration
needs to be made by a local entity, we would be happy to support your chapter in doing
so.
--m
On Dec 17, 2008, at 6:40 PM, Joaquim Mariano da Costa Neto wrote:
Dear Michael Godwin,
I am a Brazilian wikipedian and I am beginning to work with our team of local
volunteers. I am writing to inform you some issues related to trademarks that may belong
to the Wikimedia Foundation.
In Brazil, the Industrial Property National Institute (INPI - Instituto Nacional da
Propriedade Industrial) is the federal department in charge of registering and controlling
the intellectual property (which includes trademarks).
Yesterday, after a brief research at the INPI website, I found that two Brazilian
companies are trying to register at INPI some trademarks that may belong to the Wikimedia
Foundation. In 2006 and 2007, these two companies filed at the INPI the requests for
registering the following trademarks:
www.wikipedia.com.br and wikipédia. It is important
to notice that one of the companies is not trying to register the domain wikipedia.com.br:
the company is just trying to register a trademark that uses the
expressionwww.wikipedia.com.br (with a specific logotype). I list below the trademarks
that may belong to the Wikimedia Foundation and the names of the respective companies that
filed the related requests for registering (with the INPI file numbers and the dates of
request in round brackets):
-
www.wikipedia.com.br - Web Use Serviços Ltda. ME (900080442) (10.nov.2006)
- wikipédia - Wikipédia Distribuição de Conteúdo Eletrônico Ltda. (900632860)
(29.nov.2007)
The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br - Comitê Gestor da Internet no
Brasil) is the Brazilian federal department in charge of registering and controlling the
Brazilian Internet domains, with jurisdiction over the country code top-level domain
designated for Brazil (.br). The CGI.br (which is not related to the INPI) made the domain
wikipedia.com.br unavailable for any entity other than Wikipedia. Therefore, the current
problem is not related to the registration of the domain, but to the registration of the
trademark that uses the expression
www.wikipedia.com.br.
The requests in question are still in analysis and the INPI did not decided to
concede or refuse the registrations.
The Brazilian law states that the request for registering a trademark may be opposed
by proving that similar or identical trademark already exists and is legally registered.
In other words, the Wikimedia Foundation may oppose the requests filed by the
above-mentioned companies at INPI.
After the concession, the registration may also be made null and void by proving that
similar or identical trademark exists and had been legally registered before the request
was filed.
If you need any further clarification, feel free to contact us. We are at your
disposal to help.
Kind regards,
Joaquim Mariano da Costa Neto
Veja quais são os assuntos do momento no Yahoo! + Buscados: Top 10 - Celebridades -
Música - Esportes