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."

Who?

[phorm]

So who is it that has registered this "word mark" anyhow? The blog itself is pretty short on details, as it appears those that link to or use virtualdub have been getting the letters, and not the author himself.

Also, one wonders if there is some legal way to charge and/or get money back from somebody who is illegally using the name of your product to extort money.

Microsoft trolled VirtualDub as well...

[Anonymous Coward]

... a while back. They strongarmed the developer(s?) to remove WMV compatibility. And now some Trademark Troll is busting their chops? Can't my favorite movie editing software catch a break?

Comments more interesting...

[himurabattousai]

It appears that the author or VirtualDub might not be in trouble at all. According to the comments about his blog entry, the letters are worthless if they aren't from a lawyer--and sometimes even if they are. It also seems that since his program has documented existence that predates the word mark "registration," such a registration would be invalid.

No less troubling, though, are those who can't do a damn thing in life trying to legally steal from those who actually produce something of value. I can't think of any better word to describe the actions of people who create nothing, not even ideas, and sue when someone comes up with a device that loosely resembles their mystery ideas.

As good /.'ers

[Gr8Apes]

shouldn't we link to VirtualDub [virtualdub.org], Sourceforge [sourceforge.net] and its download [virtualdub.org] links [sourceforge.net] a few thousand times?

Re:I thought Europe had better protections

[MyNameIsFred]

...I've often read that European laws offer their citizens greater protection than the US...

When you compare two countries laws, there are always instances where country A is better than country B. And other instances where the opposite is true. For example, see the many European criticisms of the Patriot Act. One the other hand, I note the recent foiled plot in England, the British police used powers that are likely unconstitutional in the US [allheadlinenews.com]. It is not hard to find similar examples. Look at the recent slashdot discussion on evolution [slashdot.org]. Many people pinged on US atitutdes, ignoring surveys in Europe showing similar atitudes [bbc.co.uk] My point being, neither Europe or the US has a monopoly on good laws or atitudes.

Re: Comments more interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could implement a law that asking for license fees to use a certain trademark when a) the product to which it is referring is clearly identified, b) the product that is being referred to clearly predates the trademark registration date, and c) the trademarkholder has been made aware of this, is a form of legal harassment from which victims can seek redress.

Basically, if someone rejects a demand for license fees with well-founded reasons of the above, the trademarkholder is forced to initiate legal action against them to affirm the trademark. If not, and asking for license fees from a further party, that further party could initiate legal action immediately on receipt of the letter.

Can anyone see any flaws in this? Obviously it depends on party 2 being able to prove that they rejected the claim, and then communicating that in an open letter which party 3 picks up, but that shouldn't be a major obstacle.

Re:Virtuadub

[Threni]

> .but you didn't violate his wordmark.

In the UK I don't think that's possible, what with there being no such legal object.

eMule also had the same problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

eMule also had the same problem.

Someone registered that name in Germany, and sent out letters. It got to court, and he transferred the trademark back to the author.

Two differences exist between the cases:
1) The authors of eMule live in Germany.
2) The troll published an eMule fork himself. (possibly with spyware)

You should look exactly on what they did. I don't want to see VirtualDub renamed. (anyone mentioned WireShark? wxWidgets? Joomla!?)