VirtualDub Author Stymied by Trademark Troll

trifish writes "The author of VirtualDub wrote on his blog that 'someone has registered "VirtualDub" as a "word mark" in Germany as of June 6, 2006 and is now sending out notices to people in that country demanding money for so much as mentioning the program and linking to the SourceForge download from their website.' Well, I confess that only now I fully understand why Linux, Mozilla, TrueCrypt, and other open source projects register their names as trademarks."

Illegal Patent Trolls?

[zyl0x]

Wasn't there just a big issue with people suing for copyright/trademark infringement when they only own the IP to do so? I was pretty sure that some kind of law was recently passed because of the new fad of beating companies to trademarks and then taking all their money.

Re:Jawohl!

[DoktorTomoe]

You are free to do so. With the twisted German jurisdiction, not you are to be held responsible, but the owner of the webpage you have been mentioning V********b, as he should/ought/could have prevented the mentioning on his page.

There actually *is* a reason why Germans are required to have a imprint on their pages (Don't believe me? Look for "6 Teledienstgesetz").

Re:Comments more interesting...

[Opportunist]

There is actually a rather infamous lawyer in Germany who's been harrassing people for a long, long time (especially for copyright infringement whose companion was, interesting enough, arrested for running a warez-FTP server), I wouldn't put it beyond him to register the VirtualDub 'word mark' to continue his profitable practice of milking the unsuspecting.

Why again is it illegal to shoot lawyers on sight?

Er... this is stupid

[brunes69]

You can't sue someone for using your trademark in a publication, as long as the trademark actually referrs to your product, there is no problem.

Why do you think review sites are allowed to bash Sony / Microsoft / FooBrand products without fear of retribution?

The point of a trademark is not to keep people from talking about your product, it is to keep another company from pretending to be your product.

Re:Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to german internet news site "golem.de" [golem.de], it is "Internet Dienstleistungen Kliemen" [google.com]. The page is offline now (it was hosted by arcor.de and had freecity.de redirect ads in a frame, so I guess it was free hosting). The redirect page listed Michael Kliemen ([e-mail]) as the author. The onsite contact information was: Internet Dienstleistungen Raimar Kliemen, Hauptstr. 99, 67126 Hochdorf, mail: [e-mail], phone: [phone] (that's [phone] internationally).

Re:Er... this is stupid

[Opportunist]

Exactly that is supposedly happening. Or at least so the person who registered the trademark claims.

His claim is that he owns the trademark and has a product (if he has one is irrelevant, at least for the law) by that name, and that the "false" VirtualDub is trying to mooch from his publicity.

He's not suing people who talk about it. He sues people who link to the downloads.

Re:Quickly mark in the USA.

[trifish]

> He should quickly trademark in the USA as that will override that trademark especially
> since the author can provide proof of creation and originally naming it.

Sorry, but everything you wrote is utter nonsense. The filing date and geographical jurisdiction are what counts. You can "override" it only in USA (not in Germany), and only if the holder of the German trademark does not oppose your US registration.

Still no case

[brunes69]

Even assuming this person was being truthful, the only case they would have is agsinst the makers of VirtualDub, not the people who are talking about VirtualDub.

This is not patent law, where the user is the infringer - it is trademark law.

Why Linux is trademarked

[Xtifr]

> "Well, I confess that only now I fully understand why Linux, Mozilla, TrueCrypt, and other open source projects register their names as trademarks"

In the case of Linux(tm), it's precisely because back in the mid-nineties, someone named William Della Croce, Jr. tried to hijack the mark [linuxjournal.com] and extort money from various vendors and publishers. It took a year, and a bunch of money, to get the matter resolved [linuxjournal.com] and the trademark reassigned to Linus.

It was an ugly and sordid affair, and I really wish there were better alternatives than either registering a mark or allowing it to be attacked by trolls. Prior use of a mark--even an unregistered mark--does (or should) count against trolls, at least in the US, but it can still be a hassle to fight them off if the mark's not registered. Personally, I would like to see the term "Linux" become a generic term (like "Aspirin"), but I can understand why Linus is reluctant to allow that to happen after the Dell Croce incident.

Openoffice.org?

[Trogre]

Didn't the same thing happen to OpenOffice.org group, forcing them to adopt the silly '.org' to their name? IIRC the trademark "Open Office" was bought by a Brazilian company at the behest of Microsoft.

How would virtualdub.org sound? :)

correction 1

[roguegramma]

The registrant would need to be sued, not the the trademark and patent office.
Example: http://lexetius.com/2002,3142 [lexetius.com]