O’Reilly trademarks “Web 2.0″ and sets lawyers on IT@Cork! » at Tom Raftery’s I.T. views - and demands a name change of a conference not organized by them. Well, Web 2.0 is just marketing jargon ...
markenwahnsinn
Bluetooth SIG - Idiots at the Helm
Whoever wonders which Bluetooth hardware works with BlueZ (Bluetooth stack for Linux) will come across the following statement from the Bluetooth SIG on the compatibility list:
Whether or not you're selling them makes no difference. The problem is due to the distribution of them from your Web site. Please note that the use and distribution of non-qualified products is a violation of the Bluetooth License Agreement. As neither of these products have been qualified using Linux it is illegal to make them available for public use.
Due to this idiotic attitude, it is no longer possible to refer to the compatibility of Bluetooth products with Linux on holtmann.org. Can it get any more stupid?
You Are Stupid
You're making stupid ads - and you don't even ask all participants if they really want to participate. And you take action against critics with the trademark law. You're just a PR disaster ...
Some Cease and Desist Madness Becomes Understandable ...
... if you look at the discussion in the law blog about the registration of "Law Blog" as a trademark for Udo Vetter's weblog. And especially the arguments from Robert Basic and Udo's reactions to them. Robert's argument that it seems a bit odd to register a term that has become quite common in general blogging usage is met by Udo with the argument that it's an English term and therefore not a generic term, and that trademark law doesn't even apply in the English-speaking world. Therefore, he wants to claim "law blog" as a title for legal weblogs for himself.
Sorry, but exactly this argument is constantly brought up by some trademark guys from companies - Microsoft tries to argue that Windows is a general term. The story about the Explorer trademark - same nonsense. If even lawyers who are quite familiar with the internet have such strange ideas, you shouldn't be surprised if other lawyers see a way to make money there.
By the way, I am by no means accusing Udo Vetter of wanting to make money with the trademark - especially since it would only affect his colleagues, and as is known, one crow does not peck out the other's eye - it's just about the very strange argumentation past the criticism. About the total inability of a lawyer to understand exactly where the legally untarnished blogger has a problem.
Lawyers and normal people definitely think differently. And I mean that absolutely not in a positive sense.
More Warnings for the New Year
This time it's the advertising blogger who got caught - the father of the advertising goose (who married this pseudo-musician) warns him that he is advertising with the name of his daughter. Somehow it seems to be spreading - first the Bremen Social Court, now the Klums ...
Well, I think this will be a similar shot in the dark for the Klums as it was for the Bremen Social Court - from whom you can find almost only reports about their rather strange action on the first pages of Google. Very sensible, the action - anyone who wants to inform themselves about the Bremen Social Court now gets the right impression.
What the lawyers expect from such actions is clear: they are paid by their clients for this. However, to what extent such nonsensical actions against name mentions are really in the interest of clients - how does this actually fit with the self-image of lawyers? Shouldn't they advise and represent their clients to the best of their ability? And not mess with them?
However, it is worrying that lawyers now seem to be targeting URL components - it's no longer just the domain that seems to bother them, but also the URLs. Which naturally fits quite often with blogs and good CMS - because a good CMS packs the title into the URL so that it has a meaningful name. Could therefore become quite unpleasant if this plague spreads and possibly a court is found that supports this nonsense.
And the legal protection insurance mentioned several times in this context: I don't know if that's a solution - the insurers are currently regularly excluding these areas, for good reason. An insurance only insures something when the income exceeds the risks to such an extent that they play it safe with their profits - don't believe that insurances are fair insurances - even if some call themselves that.
A bit more about the risks can be found in the Weblawg by Sascha Kremer.
Injunction against Google's Mail Service
This absurd ridiculousness and rip-off is taking on increasingly grotesque proportions - as usual in the field of trademark law, it's enough to find a sufficiently strange judge and you can push through any nonsense. Of course, Google is a big company and the other one is a small outfit. But just take a look at the dates of the registration and the allegedly so endangered offer of the small outfit ...
Google is pretty indifferent to me - and they can probably afford the payment that will eventually be due - but this whole nonsense that arises from ridiculous trademark similarities and constructed trademark endangerments is just a form of occupational therapy and alimony for lawyers and nothing else.
But at least Google is now feeling the effects and not the - even in comparison to the small outfit still weaker - users of Google Mail. I still find it disgusting though.
Addendum: there is an interesting history of the development of word marks at Telepolis.
Another addendum: there is a more detailed report about it in the Netzzeitung. What I find particularly cute: the trademark owner claims that he only wants to be left alone. Of course, that's why he has warned a large number of users who have auctioned Google Mail invites on eBay. Typical action of someone who just wants their peace.
Gmail invitations: First interim injunction - please notify Wonko the knowledgeable.
O2 warns oxygen fillers - yeah, of course. What a blatant nonsense ...
Brand name "Milka" wins against Mrs. Milka - and thus joins the current series of nonsense.
Top-Level Domain .at has no mandatory connection to Austria
Top Level Domain .at has no mandatory connection to Austria - because German judges think so. Unless you live in Switzerland - then the judges have a different opinion. All this nonsense about naming rights is simply ridiculous - arbitrariness would almost be a reliable alternative against all the judgments that have been made in Europe on this matter.
A similarly absurd justification - that a top-level domain does not stand for a country - was also brought up with .ag. There, the judges even dared to determine that only an AG has the right to a domain under .ag.
Cease and desist letters for Gmail invitations
Abmahnungen für Gmail-Einladungen - great. The madness continues. Now people are being warned who want to sell Gmail invitations on eBay or give them away in blogs. And of course, the brand owner does not go to Google - who operate the Gmail service - but to the end users who only use a name established on the net to describe what they are giving away.
What's particularly silly about the whole thing: the brand owner is based in the same city as Google Germany - if the brand (which is of course professionally operated by Schlund + Partner, like every big and important portal) is really so threatened, why hasn't he even made a local call to Google about it? And the fact that the domain has a Created entry from August 2004 is surely purely coincidental - of course, anyone who thinks of freeloading is a scoundrel ...
For those who are not quite clear that this is not about the brand at all. Someone is sniffing fresh air here and wants to make quick money. Because greed is cool.
Google's legal counsel Lena Tangermann recommends contacting Google Germany by phone (040/808179-0) in case of a warning on this topic.
Rat der EU ignoriert Forderung des Parlaments - well, that was almost to be expected. Why bother with democracy, it only slows things down anyway ...
Microsoft receives patent on coordinates in URLs - what utter nonsense. Yet another proof that patents on algorithms are simply rubbish and at best serve to rip people off for money, but certainly not the innovation drive that defenders like to cite over and over again.
And Again Brand Madness
The Hermenschauer was asked to remove an article that references this article on Feuerwehr.de. The article discusses a company that holds a combined word and image trademark for "First Responder" and is attempting to take action against simple mentions of the word portion in domains and online presences. This is despite the fact that, according to the description on Feuerwehr.de, they have already been rejected by courts for this and there is a clear ruling that their trademark is only valid in combination.
To me, this looks very much like an attempt at censorship. Though I don't understand the reasoning behind it—the trademark holder apparently set up or is trying to set up an online magazine around the topic. But something like that can hardly work if you first antagonize the people who actually deal with the subject matter. Who would be interested in such an online magazine if they had previously received a cease-and-desist letter from them?
Certainly, the partly privately-run fire department websites are potential competitors—but that's just how it is on the internet, you're not alone there. And lawyers don't help with that either.
Software Patent Directive: EU Parliament calls for restart of proceedings - whether that will particularly impress the Commission now? Last time they simply ignored the opinion of Parliament anyway.
Bundestag's Legal Committee votes against software patents
Legal Affairs Committee of the Bundestag votes against software patents - will someone in government finally wake up? Or will the Bundestag's position - like the EU Parliament's position before it - be trampled underfoot?
heise online - EU Council to make another attempt at software patents
heise online - EU Council to make another attempt at software patents and continues to trample on the opinion of the population and parliaments. And our government in Berlin sits on its fat ass, greased by the economy, and does nothing. Never mind if such nonsense will cause problems for the software mid-market, never mind if it only benefits the big software giants, never mind if it's just brown-nosing America. Nobody really cares about the issue, after all it's just a bunch of software nerds making a fuss, who cares about them anyway.
And eventually even the dumbest minister will realize that software patents don't create jobs.
Google receives patent on search term highlighting
Google Gets Patent on Search Term Highlighting - and this means my website violates exactly this patent. Thanks to the Search Highlight plugin for WordPress (which comes as standard), search terms are highlighted in color when visitors come to my pages from a search engine. Well, sue me then, Google ...
Patents are problematic enough as it is, but such trivial patents are just infuriating.
IBM on Software Patents
IBM's Action is very interesting: not only are patents made freely available to free software, but there is also a clear declaration of war against litigious parties. Anyone who pursues lawsuits against Open Source runs the risk of losing the rights to use IBM patents. Of course, it's now interesting to see exactly which patents IBM is making available, but I could well imagine that IBM has some real blockbusters in there. After all, IBM is one of the companies with the largest patent portfolio (if not the company with the largest one).
Microsoft attempts to patent object persistence
Toll - simple and banal object serialization. That sort of thing has existed for years, nonsense for decades. And Microsoft wants to patent it...
At kasia in a nutshell there's the original article.
...out of the potatoes: Software patents postponed
Postponed is unfortunately not cancelled ...
At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.
No Software Patents
Web-Demo against software patents by ffii. Get involved!
Green light for EU Council software patent directive
And democracy is being trampled on. The European economy too. The only ones profiting from this are the large multinational corporations that are already trying to eliminate their competitors today in areas where it's possible - mainly the United States of Dementia - with idiotic patents. And of course the many patent shakedown companies that try to push through the most absurd things as patents just to make quick money without any performance of their own.
One has to ask oneself who the members of the EU Council (and the national governments supporting them) are actually being paid by. The whole thing simply stinks of corruption.
At heise online news there's the original article.
Patents Should Meet BASIC Tests of Reason
Ouch. A couple of employees from the Microsoft Visual Basic Team apparently filed a patent on the IsNot operator - yes, something like a "not equal to", but for object references instead of values - what a bunch of nonsense. And cheekily, they also claim in their application that Borland Delphi is a Basic derivative — while ignoring the fact that Delphi is Pascal, which has a quite different history...
The whole thing has the feel of a joke, but unfortunately it appears to be true.
Linde loses medically important patent
Occasionally, patent offices also make sensible decisions. One of the most senseless patents in recent times has been laid to rest. To bottle a normally producible gas and bring it to market at inflated prices, then expect those inflated prices to be secured by an exclusive patent is quite audacious.
At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.
I© love" You®
More madness around trademark law. Eventually we won't be allowed to say anything because absurd jurisprudence, brazen lawyers and incompetent judges consider this whole nonsense more important than protecting citizens from such rubbish. We can probably just wait for the first websites to be cease-and-desist letters because they have some word sequences in the title tag that some manufacturer has had registered.
At Telepolis News (01.11.2004) you can find the original article.
The Human as Commercial Brand
News from the madhouse of trademark law.
At Telepolis News (14.08.2004) you can find the original article.
End of Innocence?
Well, that's quite a mess what happened with the Elfe. Something like this just shows once again that in Germany many people couldn't care less what they destroy, as long as they get their legal right. Completely irrelevant whether the behavior is excessive. Completely irrelevant whether they ruin their own reputation, like the company that's sending cease-and-desist letters to the Elfe (no, I won't link the company, that shouldn't get referrer traffic either). The only thing that matters is flexing your power muscles, no matter how ridiculous and pathetic the behavior is, no matter whether someone's livelihood is destroyed in the process, no matter whether you get anything out of it or not. Whether it's the neighbor's cherry tree, the mutt from across the street or just your own crappy homepage or domain. No matter how ridiculous and absurd, you have the law on your side, so just keep hammering away. Where this is leading us Nico asks: well, the last word will probably go to the same people who profit the most from all this madness: the lawyers. Because ultimately it will always end up with lawyers - whether it's because of court proceedings or legal advice. Ever heard the saying about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse? How is a workable legal situation ever supposed to emerge in the area of trademarks, brand rights and patent hysteria, as long as lawyers are making such good money off these things? As long as cease-and-desist letters in these areas can be used as actual extortion attempts, which many people are simply helpless against (because the whole thing is so convoluted and absurd)? At Nochn Blogg. you can find the original article.
Legal dispute Obelix vs. MobiliX finally concluded
Great. Another proof that these trademark law issues are anything but sensible. Nobody among us should confuse mobile Unix with fat Belgian comic characters anymore. We customers are too stupid to think and the court has now officially confirmed that. Wonderful.
At heise online news you can find the original article.