O'Reilly Lawyers Set Up Shop in the Patent Office

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

I trademark "First Post" tm!

I'm Trademarking Trademark! (tm)

"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."

Un-fucking-believable (tm)

Re:I'm Trademarking Trademark! (tm)

No kidding, they've gone from "Good Guys" to "Shite Sucking Weasels" in my book.

MAKER FAIRE is an OK trademark

OK, unless you're of the "trademarks are evil" school, it seems like there's nothing wrong with this. In "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Raymond talks about how he and O'Reilly tried to trademark the term "Open Source", and have it defined by the OSD. His reasoning was that there would be legal recourse against people using the term open source when not actually opening their source code. And after seeing shenanigans of this sort (Sun, anyone?), this makes perfect sense.

This is all just so ludicrous.

I agree that companies should be allowed to protect the names of their products to make sure they are not used by other companies for their products, be they similar to the Original (in which case we would speak of plagiarism) or completely different (in which case they might still make unfair use of the original companie's product's fame). That's what trademarks are for.

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.

That crazy Bill

Bill O'Reilly is always up to crazy stuff. Next he'll want to patent racy phone calls that generate a lawsuit.

What? Oh, you don't mean that O'Reilly? Yeah, we'll they are crazy too. Al Gore invented the word website.

On the subject of Website...

Way back in the mid-1990s, O'Reilly published a web server program for Windows called... wait for it... Website Professional. Generally abbreviated as O'Reilly Website or just Website. It was later sold to Deerfield, which incorporated it into their VisNetic line. Eventually, Deerfield dropped the product entirely.

So as crazy as it seems, they actually had a product to trademark.

Re:On the subject of Website...

The question is whether everyday words should be allowed trademarked, and how doing this reflects upon those who grab the trademark. Before long, we'll see unscrupulous people trademarking everyday terms like Windows or top level domains like dot-net.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:On the subject of Website...

Like "xerox", "kleenex", and "thermos"?

Re:On the subject of Website...

And if you actually look at the trademark application, it states that they were seeking to trademark the term as it relates to "computer software used to create a server on a global computer network and enable management of documents on the server, for use by those who access the electronic global information infrastructure". Also, the trademark application was not rejected, it was abandoned by O'Reilly.

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.

Web 2.0 trademark

Might as well trademark the equivant phrase "overhyped vaporware"!

The "Netizens" & the "Hactivists" Go "Wardrivi

...and are never heard from again. Maybe they get infected with "virii."

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

In all seriousness...

When did O'Reilly stop being about making quality books and stuff and start being about creating buzzwords and catchphrases (Web 2.0, bleh.) and trademarking them?

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.

Re:In all seriousness...

> When did O'Reilly stop being about making quality books and stuff and start being about creating buzzwords and catchphrases (

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.

O RLY? YA RLY!

Its good to know that our language is being protected by these companies.

please trademark netizens and website

Dear O'Reilly: Please trademark netizens and Website. Also, feel free to flip through the dictionary and trademark any other dumb word you can. Then, sue everyone that uses those words. The legal system will be so inundated that I'll get tons more work as an IT consultant implementing test cases or what have you for the cases.
Thanks,
signed everyone

oh please please *crosses fingers*

Please trademark "GINORMOUS" .. please.. and defend it vigorously.

Yayy

Thank god, now finally the damn buzz-word will be gone forever.

On a related note, does that mean I could trademark something like "Apple 8.7" just for fun?

Re:Yayy

Thank god, now finally the damn buzz-word will be gone forever.

Now what'll we use to impress C level management??? Hard work??? I want more jargon! All I have left is Ajax!

What's wrong with a trademark?

When you apply for a trademark, you are applying for exclusive use of a given mark for a particular business area. If O'Reilly registers the phrase "Maker Faire" as a trademark for the business of trade conferences, what exactly is wrong with that? Most people wouldn't argue that it would probably be wrong for somebody to start up some mom-n-pop copy store and call it "FedEx Kinko's." They can't do that, because the real FedEx Kinko's has registered that mark as a trademark. Similarly, if O'Reilly invests a considerable amount of money to organize, advertise, staff, and otherwise produce a trade show and they have decided on a name for that trade show, why on earth should they not trademark that name?? If some "Irish scallywag" moved to Palo Alto next week and threw together a fly-by-night trade show under the name "Maker Faire," how could it conceivably not damage the equity O'Reilly has invested in that brand? Protecting business investments is the purpose of trademarks.

NEWS FLASH: The name "Slashdot" is trademarked. Shock! Horror!

These make sense

1) Maker Faire, Netizen, and Web 2.0 are all registered for a single use: Conferences. They named a conference and they should be allowed to protect that name. If someone started running their own thing and couldn't come up with a name so they called it E3 or PCExpo, you'd expect the holders of those trademarks to sue, no?

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.

Dang, didn't realize...

It's April 1st again already? ;P

patents != trademark

Common editors, you have been doing this for how long, and you still don't know the difference between patents and trademarks?

Re:patents != trademark

USPTO = United States Patent and Trademark Office.

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

O'Reilly Lawyers Set Up Shop in the Patent Office

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.

So what does this have to do with Patents? It's the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Are you trying to confuse us on purpose?

Hi, I'm Lizzy Fair

Have you people never heard of the tragedy of the commons? Words and phrases that are owned "collectively" will be mismanaged into meaninglessness. Ideally, every possible combination of characters and punctuation will be owned by someone. Only then will our words be safe from the evil communists seeking to collectivize our precious language.

Comment from 2016

Slashdot is one of my favourite [REDACTED], because it keeps me informed on all the recent developments in the exciting fields of [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and Doctor Who.

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]

Such Patent Abusers should be sued

And the lawsuits has to be class action lawsuits. So that nobody should be able to try to patent a PUBLIC, EVERYDAY word and get away unscathed even they are unsuccessful.

Obligatory

Doesn't matter, he's still a blubbering vagina. [thebestpag...iverse.net]

Not OReilly's fault

As a small business owner, I know that often you have to file patents and trademarks defensively.

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 ridiculous trademark/patenting/copyright system than O'Reilly par se.

Lawyers

Patents, Trademarks, and Lawyers might all be a form of legal cancer. Worse its a cancer you can only defend against by getting cancer yourself.

They are all cancerous growths on society.

That Potato Farming Bastard!!!

Bill O'Reilly really makes my blood boil. He's such a BIG FAT LIAR it's so sad! Now he's trying to do something to the patent system too! What's he gonna do, get the Fox security team on their cases?

They who trademark clipart

O'Reilly has all sorts of "interesting" trademarks. They have trademarked the Camel on the Perl books. (You know, the one(s) taken from the Dover Animals clipart book.) They will trademark just about anything if they think it will give them an "edge".

I wonder just how much they pay to Dover for all the clipart they use on their covers that have been taken from Dover clipart books. Damn little I bet.

What O'Reilly Should TM

IMHO the only thing O'Reilly is qualified to even attempt to trademark would be "Shitty Books" and/or "Crappy Conferences".

Next up!

BLOGOSPHERE!

WEB SITE(tm), WEB CITE(tm)...

...what about WEB SIGHT(sic)(tm)?

The price is right...

I guess anyone can trademark Web 2.01 and screw these guys! But seriously, are they so dumb that they don't realize it's too late for Web 2.0? If you want to be ahead of the game, you gotta go Web 3.0. But I guess that'll be outdated too. Hmm... Assigning numerical appendages to cutesy words seems like a bad idea for a trademark/patent. BTW, if you use "Web 42.01" anywhere, you have to reference me.

What's the big deal

A private, for-profit company is trying to make money through litigation. Surprise is a naive reaction to this story.

Always Remember to . . .

vote with your pocket book. Don't purchase products from companies that behave in a manner inconsistent with your principles. Without money they cannot hire lawyers. Without lawyers they cannot trademark or copyright material. However, without trademarked or copyrighted material jobs might be scarce. Wait a second . . .

Well...

The author's keyboard for SURE has a CAPS LOCK key!

O'RLY?

I wonder if they've tried to get "O'RLY?" as well...

Patent != Trademark

When did we start confusing Patents with Trademarks... They are quite different things. The title is very misleading.

You can't blame them

Someone smarter than me in this area (a paralegal specializing in trademark law) commented:

"They registered the mark for services of arranging/conducting trade shows and business conferences in the fields of computers, communications and information. To register they had to provide evidence of use, so yes. They can only go after others who are using the mark for the same services, as they did when they sent the little nonprofit a cease and desist to stop using it for arranging conferences. So they were perfectly within their rights to assert their tm ownership where they saw infringement, as in fact, they are required to do in order to maintain those rights. However, they could not legitimately go after others using the same term for computers or for internet technology, since their registration is limited to the conference/trade show services. (Unless they decide to assert they have a 'famous' mark, in which case they may try to prevent others from using it for anything.) However, the standards for evidencing ownership of a 'famous' mark are very stringent, including areas of use, length of ownership, etc.

"It looks to me like they were ahead of the game in adopting a term that is so popular it's in danger of going generic. If the term was recognized at the time they filed as an industry term, then it was up to others to protest to the PTO when the mark was published for public review. To retain their rights, OReilly has to police usage, or just give up and acknowledge the name is in the public domain."

That's the last straw, Bill!

I'm never watching The O'Reilly Factor again.

This is news?

This is Tim O'Reilly:

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 oval in a kind of superman logo. It was not for generic use of the term.

I don't remember the trademark application for netizens (it was back in 1994), but I believe it was a joint project with the folks who originated the term to create an online directory of net citizens -- and was specific to that use.

Similarly, people commenting in the thread brought up the O'Reilly trademarks on animal book covers. Once again, people don't understand the concept of a trademark. It's not for any animal on the cover of a book, it's for a specific animal in a specific context -- say, the camel for Perl.

And as to the people who say, "O'Reilly shouldn't have exclusive rights to that association between perl and the camel, and the right to say who can use it", I say, "why not?" Is there any conceivable reason for the camel to be associated with Perl besides the fact that it first appeared on our book cover?

The fact that the images are public domain (and not all are) is completely irrelevant. The words used in most trademarks are also in the public domain. It's their particular context and field of use that gives them protection. Nike means victory in Greek. But in athletic shoes, it means one particular brand of shoes, because someone made that association, which didn't exist before, through their commercial activity.

For what it's worth, here are some common words that are in fact trademarked for a particular field of use:

Apple - for personal computers
Oracle - for databases
Windows - for operating systems
Red Hat - for versions of Linux
salesforce.com - for CRM systems
for Dummies - books for people who need to understand the basics of a new field (e.g. trademarks :-)

Oh, and by the way, slashdot (/., btw, which is a common "word" in Unix/Linux shell speak) and sourceforge are both trademarks of VA. So if you want to boycott anyone who has trademarks, you should start by boycotting this thread :-) Oh, and you should stop using Linux and Apache and Firefox, because Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, and Apache is a trademark of the Apache Software Foundation, and Firefox is a trademark of the Mozilla Foundation.

I don't think that O'Reilly's use of trademarks is any different than the use by folks like these.

Will this affect blacksmiths?

Particulary aggravating is the apparently expanded scope of O'Reilly's claim on "Maker Faire" as opposed to "Web 2.0." The latter mark is registered for use in

"Arranging and conducting live events, namely, trade shows, expositions and business conferences in various fields, namely, computers, communications, and information technology, and Organizing and conducting educational conferences, tutorials and workshops in the fields of computers, communication and information technology."

The "Maker Faire" application is for use in "Arranging of exhibitions, seminars, and conferences; entertainment services, namely, conducting fairs."

If granted, this trademark would seem to cover use of "Maker Faire" in connection with Renaissance Festival-type events, and any other market/industry.

quick fix

All we have to do is to just patch it.. web 2.01

Nonsense

Just to put the record straight I actually attended Maker Faire (or sunshine festival) two weekends ago here in Plymouth UK. It was an excellent music event with many fine rock bands attended to by three thousand occasionaly sober campers.

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

First we had the trademarking of the smiley emoticon. That got repealed thanks to a dispute that was file. However, I've noticed that both the patent and trademark office have removed their on-line forms for filing disputes. Frankly, I find that to be quite strange since almost every other government and large corporate entity is moving toward on-line forms. If anyone knows where to find these forms, please post a link, either here or on my blog.

There are a lot of things that were coined "on the 'net" long ago. To my understanding, if it's already in common usage, you are neither allowed to patent or trademark things that are in common usage. If that's the case, I'm filing a trademark on "blog", "on line", "on-line", and "online" as well as every other popular term I can think of. We've been saying "web site" for years now. Who in their right mind thinks that's not in common usage and can be trademarked????

2 cents,

QueenB

Re:Interesting show

I wish I could mod my own post, -1 offtopic and -10,000 dumbass who didn't RTFA.

Sorry,
Brad

Re:O'rielly is just a guy

Looks like you need a book, one called a Dictionary.

Re:Great!

patent!=trademark

You won't be sued.

You need to change that to Web 2.0 Conference. Thats what they were protectin'

Re:time for a boycott?

I strongly recommend that you do read up on this before you "decide to act". You should start with the fact that O'Reilly hasn't patented anything. From there, read about the very specific things the trademarks apply to and think about why O'Reilly might want them.

In short, there is nothing abusive going on here.

Re:O'Reilly has a track record of this kind of thi

Anonymous coward --

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 successful as the original.

Incidentally, Manning is now distributed by O'Reilly. If we had done them wrong, do you think this would be the case?

Re:Ugh... One More Thing.....

It's one thing to protect a product or service from being copied and abused by competitors, but a completely different thing to try to trademark generally used terms as a means of profiting principally from the use of the term itself, not the service or product.

For example, such a strategy doesn't work.