There's no actual claim that anybody is spending any money to fight in any courts. Just a nastygram to a website that took down the products proactively. Every western country has trademark laws, and you could send a similar letter in any of them.
> (What is the expected litigation route for trademark claims anyway? Can they knock a project offline, or just send a strongly worded lawyer letter?)
IANAL, but I would expect a cease-and-desist letter or the national equivalent depending on the country you're living in. Usually you have a short delay to remediate, or risk getting sued.
They didn't chose to be dicks at all. For all intents and purposes, most trademark enforcement C&Ds are not just glorified spambots, but indeed have to be. When faced with a typical long list like "freetumblr", "tumblrthemes", "tumblrporn", and so on, a lawyer's time just isn't worth spending money on. Better to just deal with the ones who write back.
This is exactly the same situation that, in reverse, helps people win small claims court cases against multinationals (because a £150 product refund is cheaper than the legal cost to fight the case)
> Not that I don't believe what you're saying, but how is this a thing they could possibly expect to hold up as a trademark infringement?
The worst part is that it doesn't even matter if they have a case or not. The mere threat of "Look at how much it'll cost you even if you're right" can be enough for people to pull back.
Recent relevant case is the Sony vs Bleem!, where Bleem! "won" but because of costs, Bleem! had to shut down anyway. So even if Sony lost the court case, they won because they shut down the group.
This is what I found on the front page of that Google search:
> At the same time, the statute characterizes certain activities as non-actionable “exclusions,” including “any noncommercial use of a mark.”
anyany
any
That was from the beginning text of a link on the first page of Google results for the search that you told me to make. Did you read any of the pages? Or is your comment just trolling?
For context, I was responded with:
> That's not how trademarks work.
Care to retract?
Edit: Multiple links on the front page of that search appear to validate my thesis. You have provided no corroborative evidence.
Edit2: Wow, my previous comment was flagged. Brutal. And not even a valid response could be generated.
Edit3: Another choice quote from the front page: "Non-commercial use cannot be prevented, except if that use harms the distinctiveness of the trademark."
Edit4: "The good news is that courts have consistently protected the public's right to use the trademarks of others in order to engage in criticism, commentary, news reporting and other forms of noncommercial expression." First link.
Edit5: "Many companies claim trademark infringement or dilution when pursuing unauthorized uses of their names or logos on the Web - but it's not entirely clear how these laws apply to noncommercial activity on the Net." Contradicts the "definitely" claim that I first responded to.
Edit6: Good thing my post was censored. Might not want to get these claims widely visible.
I'm slightly more sympathetic having heard their side--there is more to it than just random legal threats out of the blue.
..BUT.. This suit revolves more around "we felt wronged" than "this clearly infringes our trademark." The only similarity in the trademark is the word "who." The law is the law, your feelings are irrelevant.
This is a brand protection move, pure and simple. Easier to throw money at it now than to waste a retained lawyer's time writing cease and desist letters later.
Indeed. I'm not a lawyer, but clearly there are at least two routes to defending your trademark: ask people to "license" the trademark, or go to court over it. A site that clearly helps build up a brand should be a no-brainer for a free (or if the law does not allow, a £1) trademark agreement that ensures common sense things like "the site should clearly state it's unaffiliated" (which it does) or "the raspberry pi foundation should get first consideration if the site is ever sold".
I do hope Eben Upton weighs in on this, because whoever signed this off, it's a bad decision all round. Blaming trademark law is just a dishonest get-out-of-jail-free that big corporations use to justify belligerent bad-faith dealing. I hope the Raspberry Pi Foundation can show that it's different. This is not a good start.
They're not bludgeoning anyone. They applied for a trademark registration for one of their marks, it was denied and they are appealing that denial. That's all that's going on. The rest of the article the hypothetical "what if"
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