[Foundation-l] Re: Registering Wikimedia trademarks

[Michael Snow]

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
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