O'Reilly Lawyers Set Up Shop in the Patent Office 190
theodp writes "On the same day Netizens fumed over the trademarking of Web 2.0 (R), lawyers for O'Reilly were beating a path to the USPTO to file for a trademark on MAKER FAIRE, lest some Irish scallywag try to co-opt that catchy phrase for a conference. Speaking of NETIZENS, USPTO records show O'Reilly once sought a trademark for that term. And while details are sketchy, USPTO records also indicate that O'Reilly not only sought to trademark the term WEBSITE, it was the plaintiff in a scheduled Trademark Trial involving a defendant who laid claim to the phrase WEB CITE."
FP Trademark (Score:3, Funny)
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I'm Trademarking Trademark! (tm) (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'm Trademarking Trademark! (tm) (Score:5, Insightful)
MAKER FAIRE is an OK trademark (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all just so ludicrous. (Score:4, Insightful)
But I think this is a very limited scope. A trademark should, in my opinion, not allow you to forbid anyone to simply _use_ the name of your product (as opposed to stick it to their own products). Words are symbolic representations of the sounds we make with our tongues while speaking. They are free like the wind. Imagine Microsoft would sue a carpenter because he sold windows. The fine line lies in the difference between using a word as a name and a word as a word. You cannot trademark words. If you could, Shakespeare's heirs would have a nice source of income from about every native English-speaker in the world. How is a "maker fair" or a "web site" a name? They are just words. "Microsoft Windows" is a name. "Windows" is not. "Dodge Ram" is a name. "dodge" and "ram" are words.
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I simply cannot believe people are trying this crap.. and I can fathom even less that they're getting away with it.
What next, every word we speak will be trademarked or copyrighted in some fashion so that merely communicating will cost an arm and a leg?
Where the hell does it end?
Re:This is all just so ludicrous. (Score:2, Insightful)
What does that have to do with anything?
If the "Maker Faire" trademark goes through, my employer has the exclusive right to put on a fair called "Maker Faire". That's it.
You can get a tattoo of the phrase anywhere on your body. You can put it on a hot air balloon. You can write a dirty limerick about it and set it to music. You can draw a reall
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If everybody would understand the term "trademark" in the way you do it, why is this even on
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But, as DancesWithBlowTorch reminded us above, the point is not (or rather, is not supposed to be) whether a name can be used in the right context, it is to prevent the name being abused by someone who is essentially trading on the good name of another.
This is why I remain to be convinced about things like the old mikerowesoft site. Sur
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"Apple" is perhaps an unfortunate example, being the name of both a computer company and a music company whose worlds collided with the invention of iTunes...
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Classic cabalism. "My personal circle of associates are superior to the rest of you, so it is right and just for us to solely dictate." Wasn't James Coburn in a movie or two about the problems of prejudicial wonkocracy? Let's not even get into the anti-openness of such a move (which is especially ironic for the term "open source") -- I'm sure it's been said.
Rea
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Oh, and stop quoting from that essay. The analogy wasn't that good back in the
That crazy Bill (Score:5, Funny)
What? Oh, you don't mean that O'Reilly? Yeah, we'll they are crazy too. Al Gore invented the word website.
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Prior art. [wikipedia.org]
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On the subject of Website... (Score:5, Informative)
So as crazy as it seems, they actually had a product to trademark.
Re:On the subject of Website... (Score:5, Insightful)
Regards,
--
*Art
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Re:On the subject of Website... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Your sig: Too many posts hit +4.
Rather apt in this case I think, considering your examples are obviously words which were not "real" everyday words and then got trademarked, but invented trademarks which BECAME everyday words.
The only thing more bizarre than you not realising that, is apparently 2-3 other slashdot users not realising it either.
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Your own argument is flawed - website is also a made up word. In fact, as has been stated elsewhere in this article, the application they had that was called Website was from 1994 (and ran on 3.1!)... a point in time at which the term website was most definitely not a common term. I know I was still spending most of my time in newsgroups and IRC at the time.
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So the phrase in common use at the time was, apparently, "web site," with "website" being a misspelling. It's funny how quickly usage changed.
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That's what this entire thread has been about.
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Invalid argument. The term computer had been in use for a good 50 years before that time. If you were to have tried to trademark the term "Computer" in, say, the 1930s then you might have had a valid trademark - though the term had been in use for quite some time (centuries) before that to refer to an individual who performed mathemati
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Post by a very short period of time. Was the term website actually in use before then? Was it commonly used? I don't know, and quite frankly I don't care. My point in all this has just been that there's a big difference between a term that's been used for a very long time and a term that has not actually reached common use yet.
I understa
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The trademark only covers the name of their (now defunct) web server, not any use of the term website. So nobody else would be able to create a web server and call it "Website". That's it. It's not like they were trademarking the general term... if you go and look at the trademark application, it quite specifically mentions that it refers to their web server software. Trademarks
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Hell, there's even a glazier in my local area called Windows 2000. And I happen to know that Microsoft's UK trademark agents are based not far away, so they're probably well and truly aware of the existence of this
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1) There is nothing wrong with using everyday words as trademarks. Many consumer products do (just check out your supermarket aisles).
2) Trademarks, when applied for, must describe the market for their good and/or service. A trademark simply protects the good/service in that market, and does not stop anyone from using the word in any other context (or even for any other product/service, given some caveats, e.g. famous marks).
3) Trademarks need to be actively defended, so a C+D l
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If you produced pullovers under the trademarked name "FrobbyZalt(tm)" you're going to have a good case against the competitor that start selling t-shirts under the name "Frobbys
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Slashdot: News for people who were too stoned or too young to remember the mid-90s.
Sources: Before 1995, the word "website" was used less than 300 times [google.com] on USENET. During the same time, the term "web site" was used over 5000 times [google.com]. If you prowl through those uses of "web site" you will see that almost
Re:On the subject of Website... (Score:5, Informative)
So, the summary is a little misleading as it seems to suggest that they were trying to blanket trademark an obviously generic (even at the time) word.
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Tim O'Reilly and his Web 2.0 trademark are now being seen for what they really are - evil attempts at forcing others out of his industry (technology publishing) by trademarking the jargin related to it. That's evil in a way Microsoft could only dream of being.
I haven't bough O'Reilly books for a while, and I'm certainly not going to be after learning about this. O'Reilly can burn
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Web 2.0 trademark (Score:3, Funny)
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Sorry, but that trademark has already been awarded [3drealms.com].
- Stealth Dave
P.S. - Kudos to the DNF web team for creative use of the <blink> tag!
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The "Netizens" & the "Hactivists" Go "Wardrivi (Score:2)
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Re:The "Netizens" & the "Hactivists" Go "Wardr (Score:2)
In all seriousness... (Score:4, Interesting)
There was a time when I'd buy an O'Reilly book to learn a new technology; now I mostly just find resources on the web via Google. I half-seriously wonder if lots of other developers made the same transition and eroded O'Reilly's original and sane-seeming business model.
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Now it's looking more and more like the right choice.
@O'Reilly: GG NEWBS
Re:In all seriousness... (Score:4, Informative)
Around the time the "Hacks" series came out. Those are some seriously crappy books, almost without exception.
Manning Press has some really nice books out these days with the "In Action" series.
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I was surprised by the general shittiness of Ruby In a Nutshell [oreilly.com]. I found it difficult to use to actually learn ruby. On a co-worker's recommendation, I picked up a copy of Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide [pragmaticprogrammer.com], which I've been much more happy with.
That's the first O'Reilly book I've encountered that's been so thoroughly unsatisfactory. A shame, really. I'd like to believe this is an exception to the rule rather than the harbinger of a general downard trend in the quality of O'Reilly books.
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It's interesting that O'Reilly doesn't publish an instructional book for Ruby.
O RLY? YA RLY! (Score:1)
oh please please *crosses fingers* (Score:2, Funny)
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Also "slippery slope" everyone uses it to defend anything they don't like. There's a couple more I could definatly live with out too.
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Yayy (Score:2)
On a related note, does that mean I could trademark something like "Apple 8.7" just for fun?
Re:Yayy (Score:5, Funny)
Now what'll we use to impress C level management??? Hard work??? I want more jargon! All I have left is Ajax!
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Sorry Ajax is a registered trademark of Colgate. http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/HC/Products/ HouseholdCleaners/Ajax.cvsp [colgate.com]
What's wrong with a trademark? (Score:5, Insightful)
NEWS FLASH: The name "Slashdot" is trademarked. Shock! Horror!
Wrong purpose. (Score:3, Interesting)
Protecting the consumer's ability to identify the source of goods and services is the purpose of trademarks.
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That's a pleasantly utopian view of the world, but if it's really about some sort of consumer-rights issue then the consumer ought to be the one paying to register the trademarks.
On the contrary. When I register a trademark for my business, the reason I'm doing it is to establish a unique identifier for my goods and services, true -- but the reason I do that is because I don't want some other compa
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Exactly. You want to protect the consumer's ability to identify the source of goods and services, specifically yours. When that consumer sees something with your trademark on it, you want it to be your item and not somebody else's using your name.
Whence the confusion may arise (Score:2)
The subject line of The Article mentions "the Patent Office". The USPTO handles trademarks in addition to patents.
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These make sense (Score:5, Informative)
2) The "Website" trademark application was also for a single use, in this case "computer software used to create a server on a global computer network..". Apparently, O'Reilly used to make a piece of software called "Website Professional [geotrust.com]", and it was this uninspired name they were trying to protect. Again, color me unsurprised.
This entire argument has gone back and forth a million times already, so it's kind of pointless. People who are anti-trademarks will argue that this is word-squatting and that "netizen" and "web 2.0" are public domain words. People who aren't will argue that the trademarks only cover their original uses by O'Reilly and thus using the word(s) netizen on a website or a newspaper or even the cover of a best-selling book is not infringement.
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Dang, didn't realize... (Score:2)
O'Reilly Lawyers Set Up Shop in the Patent Office (Score:2)
Hi, I'm Lizzy Fair (Score:4, Funny)
Comment from 2016 (Score:5, Funny)
I use my [REDACTED]-aggregator for quick access to all of the cool articles, and then follow the underlined [REDACTED] to other [REDACTED] with related information! Easy as 1-2-[REDACTED]!
Of course, paying the IP tax to read certain words like [REDACTED], [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] can be a bit of a pain, but [I HEARTILY ENDORSE ALL ACTIONS OF THE PATENT OFFICE]!
Your friend,
[REDACTED]
Not OReilly's fault (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, it may not be that O'Reilly particularly wants to grab the term and vindictively go after people who use it, but rather that they felt the need to trademark the phrase to protect themselves from someone who may try to do it first and then go after them. My guess is that any name O'Reilly chose would've been trademarked, regardless of how novel it was.
This is probably more a product of our ridicu
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Lawyers (Score:2)
They are all cancerous growths on society.
What O'Reilly Should TM (Score:2)
Next up! (Score:2)
WEB SITE(tm), WEB CITE(tm)... (Score:2)
The price is right... (Score:2)
Patent != Trademark (Score:2)
That's the last straw, Bill! (Score:2)
This is news? (Score:2)
I'm not surprised that theodp would submit this story, but I'm surprised that slashdot would run it. O'Reilly files trademarks is news? Especially trademarks that we filed over ten years ago?
A little bit of background on the specific trademark applications cited, either in the story or in the comments:
The trademark for Website -- which was, incidentally, the first Windows-based web server, back in 1995 -- was for a particular graphic mark -- the name website in red letters in a yellow
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You must be thinking of ./ which is used for current directory. Particularily for runnign a executable program from the current directory rather than searching for the program on $PATH. As in "Then run ./install.sh to start the installation-script."
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I blame the use of the term "Intellectual Property" for people thinking of trademarks as bad. People know that cop
Nonsense (Score:2)
I am applying for trademarks for the words "the" "a" and "and" as I am marketing a range of stylish suicide bombs under these tags.
Grrrrrr.
Sad But True Patent and Trademark Tales (Score:2)
There are a lot of things that were coined "on the 'net" l
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Sorry,
Brad
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heh; actually (Score:2)
So, no more posting for me today.
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That's why you're a geekoid instead of a geek -- real geeks don't sleep.
Re:patents != trademark (Score:5, Informative)
This means that in the US:
Patent Office = USPTO
Trademark Office = USPTO
So, even though patent != trademark, we can still conclude that:
Patent Office = Trademark Office
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Patent law is important but complaining about trademarks is for weenies.
C != the whole world (Score:3, Interesting)
Not everybody codes in C. Some code in Pascal or other languages where assignment is represented as := or <=. Some code in dialects of LISP where let and set! are used for creating variables. Some code in BASIC where = in an expression context means equality but = in a statement context means assignment. Some people code in Java, where using an assignment in the condition of an if or while loop results in a compile error of no automatic cast to boolea
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patent!=trademark
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Considering that many people refer to the O'Reilly perl books simply as "the camel book" and the "llama book", I don't think O'Reilly is out of line. Clearly people (or at least IT people) mentally link the O'Reilly perl book to the image of the camel (and llama), so a trademark is perfectly reasonable.
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For more info see; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Reilly_Media [wikipedia.org]
You won't be sued. (Score:2)
Re:O'Reilly has a track record of this kind of thi (Score:2)
This is Tim O'Reilly. You are misinformed. We never filed a lawsuit against Manning. We wrote them a letter asking them not to do books that were obviously trading on the association that we had built between animal book covers and technical topics. They understood the issue and changed their branding. The result: Manning came up with some original brands, that were not confusing, and have helped them to become more successful, with their own identity. Knockoffs are rarely as succe
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Au contraire, 1) Believing that a generic word cannot be used as a trademark; Just because some law has been passed by any assembly does not mean that the law is just and sound. Just like the net neutrality in u.s. - they who pay, make the law. Using of generic words as a trademark monopolizes the use of that word in benefit of the tm. holding company. You can not use it without permission fr
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Even if that wasnt so, in any case the concept that you might be sued for saying something with an everyday word that is being used in a context that is 'confusingly similar' to a brand name, would prove that it can be detrimental to concept of SPEECH, let alone freedom of speech.