[87788] in Cypherpunks
Re: Trademarking CypherSpace???
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael H. Warfield)
Mon Oct 6 19:34:24 1997
From: "Michael H. Warfield" <mhw@wittsend.com>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971006132514.033f9a78@mail.sac.net> from Eric Hughes at "Oct 6, 97 01:25:14 pm"
To: eric@sac.net
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 18:41:04 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: stewarts@ix.netcom.com, cypherpunks@toad.com, marcom@i-planet.com,
kfong@ix.netcom.com, gbroiles@c2.net
Reply-To: "Michael H. Warfield" <mhw@wittsend.com>
> At 06:52 PM 10/5/97 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
> >Sigh. A company called I-Planet is trying to trademark the term
> >"Cypherspace", even though we've been using it for a couple of years
> >in the cypherpunk community.
> All this fuss is really not such a big deal, as long as the Patent and
> Trademark Office <http://www.uspto.gov> hears about it. I know nothing
> about trademark procedure, but I imagine that a letter (or three) to the
> PTO referencing the right application number on it could scotch an
> application but quick. Printing out email and adding a stamp seems almost
> sufficient.
Oh man! Better think again. This really feels like Deja Vue.
If you are not familiar with it, take a look at what the Linux community
went through when some clown snuck through a trademark on "Linux". You
can check out that story at <http://www.ssc.com/linux/trademark/>. He
lost, but not without some ugly fighting. Actually, he surrendered the
Trademark to Linus Torvalds in exchange for his original filling fees.
I think Linus, Linux International, SSC, et al decided that would be
cheaper than to continue to litigate, even though the individual in
question was facing possible criminal charges over filing a false PTO
application.
Don't take it lightly and if you can beat it before the Trademark
is issued, DON'T WAIT!
> Maybe the nice folks at i-planet (I know you're getting this) could just
> post their application number and save us the trouble of finding it ourselves?
> And I checked: The fee for a formal _ex parte_ appeal filing is only $100.
> I'm sure the i-planet lawyers will spend far more than that defending one
> of those.
> Eric
Mike
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