[Foundation-l] German Trademark - Wikimedia Foundation Meeting, 4 July 2004

[Dietrich von Hase]

Hi,

>
>Jimbo will contact a German lawyer regarding the registration of the
>Wikimedia trademark in Germany, which someone else is currently
>attempting to register.
>
There are laws and a ruling in Germany for the name protection of 
existing publication titles
(newspapers, book, films, online-magazines, etc.). So most probably such 
a trademark
application must fail it its made in the fields of publication and media.

However, this targeted try to misuse trademark registration services 
indicates, that we
will see much more of it in the future in more and more counties when 
the name
Wikipedia gets spread and of more value.

To avoid such attempts from the beginning own trademark registration 
would be
really the best. Think of the workload in contacting lawyers in more and 
more
countries.  A EU-trademark application in Alicante (Spain) costs about 
3.100 US$
(2.600 Euro) and covers the EU-countries - see http://oami.eu.int/. 

Dietrich
hase at akademie.de