Lawyer Attempts To Trademark Bitcoin 209
An anonymous reader writes "A NY based lawyer has submitted an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office claiming first use of the term bitcoin on June 22nd, 2011. The evidence of first use in the form of a letter detailing his wife's offer to sell "bitcoin" for $17.50 on June 23rd. A pdf extolling the virtues of bitcoin has also been uploaded to his law firms webpage."
Re:Punish Trolls (Score:4, Informative)
"Prior art" is about patents. Trademarks have more to do with "common use" and in this case, I believe that can be easily demonstrated. Bitcoin is a "thing" not a brand and so it should not be eligible for trademark any more than "web browser" would be.
Re:Punish Trolls (Score:5, Informative)
While the term 'prior art' is a patent term, there is something directly similar called prior use. So the argument is still valid, even if the terminology is not legally exact.
Re:Punish Trolls (Score:4, Informative)
Registering a trademark isn't necessary. It's never been necessary. International laws have not changed trademarks like they have changed copyright.
Even a registered trademark can be restricted geographically. An example is Waffle House. Waffle House is a chain of diner-like restaurants in the Southeast US. It has a federal mark for 'Waffle House.' However, a chain of Waffle House restaurants geographically located in Indiana (or Illinois, can't remember exactly) had used the mark in that geographic location prior to Waffle House seeking the federal registration.
The result is that Waffle House cannot use the Waffle House name for its restaurants in Indiana because of the already-existing Waffle House restaurants. Instead, it goes by Waffle Steak.
Re:Vigilante justice (Score:3, Informative)
A witch wasn't a witch because there is no such thing (don't mention that silly religion like they actually have real witches.) A crooked bastard is something that exists and does so openly today with trite rationalizations as a defense -- not that they didn't do the stuff but that it is not a big deal go back and watch your TV...
The post wasn't talking of burning then (something that involved murder) but beating the snot out of them.
Those people are easy to spot and even if beaten in error; they will live and likely have plenty of money for healthcare. That being said, if this had any impact at all on the others it would be to make them less blatant or create more convincing excuses for their actions.
Re:Punish Trolls (Score:4, Informative)
no idea about the US but here(tm) in the EU trademarks are not registered exclusively for every usage but for one (or many...) classes according to the Nice Classification [wipo.int] (stupid javascripty page, no idea how to deeplink to "Class Headings").
So it would probably impossible to register the generic term "Internet" as trademark for class 38 (telecommunication) or 9 (data processing equipment and computers), but until 2009 (the holder deleted the trademark) "Internet" was in Germany registered for class 39 (travel arrangement).
Generacization (Score:4, Informative)
The chief enemy of trademarks isn't "Prior Art" but becoming "Generic".
It doesn't absolutely matter who used what first (unlike prior art & patents).
What matters is :
- In the market where a the trademarked product is sold, does this name clearly identifies the product as a separate marketed entity ?
- Does the company owning the trademark actively work in order to avoid the term becoming generic.
The first is why, sometime, plain normal dictionary words are acceptable as a trademark. Because in that market the word clearly is the specific product. As an example : an apple is a fruit. But Apple, in the IT world, is clearly the maker of Mac and iProducts, that's why its trademarkable. Then, when it moved into the music sector, things started to get problematic, because the Apple name was also widely known for a music publishing company. On the other hand you can't name a media player "Player" and attempt to trademark it this way, because the word "Player" is already used to describe the whole category of this product. It's not specific.
(Also that explains why some words can be trademarked for lots of separate products by separate companies. There is a brand of diapers called "Unix". But the chance of making a confusion between an operating system and an accessory for babies).
In today situation, bitcoins can't be used for a product name, because in the specific domain where lawyer attempts to trademark the word (in the realm of virtual currency) the word "bitcoin" has been already in use to designate a virtual currency. He can't claim the name for his own product. (Or at least not alone. He can still try to market his shop "Mama Jess' all honest Bitcoin trade" - or something along this idea)
The second is why we very often see completely stupid suits happening now or then about trademarks. The owner has to be active preventing the word becoming generic. That's why Google is publishing explanation about how to correctly use this name. Otherwise there's a risk that people will start using as verb, and then use the verb to describe "searching on any search engine".
Now, if the lawyer start pretending that in fact, he's also been working on his very own virtual currency-based product, that he back then decided to call "bitcoin" and is only filing the trademark now :
Well, theorically, he could try filing the trademark so late (as said above, timeline isn't relevant), but the problem is that until now that he's filing it, he hasn't done anything to try to protect the trademark. Even if he genuinely wanted to call his product "bitcoin", it's too late because that word is now widely use to describe the virtual currency we all know about, not specifically the product that this lawyer has been trying to sell.
Unix diapers (Score:3, Informative)
Are those for boy or girls? Or just universal?
Apparently : they are unisex [bell-labs.com].