Preliminary Injunction Against SuSE

Random Walk writes "The German news site Heise Online reports that on behalf of an anonymous client, a lawyer has won a preliminary injunction (German only) against the Linux distributor SuSE. The injunction forbids the delivery of SuSE CDs as long as they contain some program name that apparently violates a registered trademark. No more details available, but SuSE seems to be in negotiations with the other party." Head over to the fish for translation.

Comments

Killustrator again?

[Ed Avis]

Remember the Adobe vs Killustrator case? That was in Germany too. Someone said that it's common practice for legal firms to act 'freelance' and track down supposed violations without the prior approval of the trademark holder. Perhaps this is the same firm even.

Re:Killustrator again?

[HiThere]

How does one find out what names are registered? In every country?

Now, true, KIllustrator was a clear reference, but it was clearly distinguishable, would not cause confusion, didn't run on the same operating system, etc. So a decent lawyer and an honest court would have thrown the case out. But that would have cost a lot of time and money.

Again, possibly the lawyer was at fault, but Adobe didn't say "boo", so I haven't forgiven them, and don't intend to. I no longer recommend Adobe products. Ever. That was before they sic-ed the feds on Dimitry, and I must admit that that was the final touch, but even that first act would have taken quite a while to forgive, just by itself.

Adobe sees that it's big enough to act like a bully. To me this means that I don't want to give them any money or any credit for anything. They are treacherous. Unreliable. And companies that act like that generally fail within a couple of decades (of course there's MS, but Adobe isn't anywhere near that tough, and there are signs that MS is on its way down too).

If you need a graphics program for a Windows or Mac, may I recommend that you look into Deneba Canvas. It's what I use on that side, and I'm quite pleased with it.
.

In English this time (somewhat easier to read)

[uebernewby]

After Samba and kIllustrator, yet another open source program is in trouble. A regional court in Munich granted attorney general v. Gravenreuth a preliminary injunction against German Linux distributor SuSE. Apparently, the reason has to do with one of the open source programs contained in the SuSE distribution. The injunction forbids SuSE to continue distributing their product until the name of this program is changed. This could lead to SuSE suffering a substantial financial loss, as they can no longer sell CD's they've already manufactured.

Attorney general v. Gravenreuth confirmed he was requested to file suit on behalf of a third party, but declined to give further details, at the request of said third party. Christian Eagle, head of public relations at SuSE, stated his company will provide more information at a later date.

ok, so it's not shakespeare, but it's readable at least.

Re:In English this time (somewhat easier to read)

[Fant]

Rumours go it is still kIllustrator, which is no called "Krayon", and some sucker has a trademark called "Crayon" and runs a website crayon.de.

It doesn't make any sense

[uebernewby]

If you're sueing someone from infringing your trademark, why would you want to keep your trademark a secret?

Re:It doesn't make any sense

[bero-rh]

Since it's about a pretty generic term, my guess is

• They trademarked the term for the sole purpose on cashing in on people accidentally violating it, therefore publishing the trademark would kill their business model.
  Evil, but not beyond Gravenreuth or someone doing business with that guy.
• They don't want the bad press and public discussion about trademarking generic words.

Gravenreuth

[nr1]

I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but this Gravenreuth guy, the attorney, is one of the most hated men in the German IT scene. He has been going to court over cases like these for at least ten years.
I once got a letter from him: Back in the old Amiga days, i posted a classified ad somewhere, since i wanted to sell some of my old hardware. A couple of days later, I got a letter from some girl (including picture), who listed some of her games and wanted to trade.
Back then, I heard of these Gravenreuth tactics, so I just threw it away. Even writing some witty response on the illegality of the proposal would have probably invited some action from the law firm.

Re:Gravenreuth

[Antity]

Much of Gravenreuth's tactics in these days happened in the German magazine "64'er". I think this has also been covered in this magazine itself once. The scheme was more or less the same every time: Some people (kids, in most cases) annonced something in the private ads part of the magazine. A computer game, for example, but not a copy. They were then contacted by some girl by snail-mail, often including a photo (the same photo, but different names for the girl..) who was interested in the ad. She then asked, if one would like to "trade" some other games. If the victim sent back a list of (copied..) games back, he was sued a short time after.

So this "girl" *asked* to trade her copied software and then sued the people who responded in the name of the software company.

Gravenreuth later started to work for companies like Symicron. Symicron claimed to have an older Trademark "Explorer", and Gravenreuth successfully negotiated some sum of money with Microsoft (they did this instead of going to court; hell knows why). The point is that Symicron hasn't proven yet that an actual Symicron product called "Explorer" ever existed. But they, with Gravenreuth as lawyer, continue to sue nearly everybody who uses the name "Explorer" in Germany for computer thingies. Like a tool named "FTP-Explorer" and so on.

They even went to court against Heise (which host the newsticker that this Slashdot story is based on), because they just put one of these tools *named* with something like "Explorer" on their CD for the printed magazine "c't". They threatened to go to _every_ shop that had this issue of the magazine legally to frighten them so sell it.

There are lots of stories about Gravenreuth. Most of the very details are not known because it's always legal affairs and you can easily be sued yourself by Gravenreuth if he claims you wrote something that is not correct or not publically proven.

So, of course this whole posting is just IMHO, AFAIK and AFAIR, and IANAL, and nothing of all this is true anyway.... (I'm living in Germany.)

Re:Gravenreuth

[rkit]

for those of you who speak german: there is even a gravenreuth-FAQ: http://www.klostermaier.de/fvg/faq.html

Re:Gravenreuth

[Lars T.]

Even funnier/sadder was the thing with Tricon. He represented a Dutch company named "Tricon Engineering BV" that held a trademark on the name "Tricon". And because "Triton" could be confused with Tricon, he got an injunction on people advertising computers and motherboards with an Intel chipset commonly known as "Triton". He even tried to get Microsoft in the sack, because Windows 95 flashed "Triton" on the screen when booting on a machine with said chipset. Heise article (in german), post from the freebsd-chat, and the Gravenreuth Abmahnungs FAQ (in German), Part 1 of 6.

German lawyers have this strange tool...

[AtariDatacenter]

If I remember correctly, and it was shown on Slashdot, an open source project was sued by a german lawyer for trademark violation and created a lot of ill will. What happened, if memory serves, is that in Germany, a lawyer can sue for trademark violation, even without the knowledge, consent, or business dealings with the party being 'violated'.

Great system, huh? So, a lawyer found a trademark violation, and is going after it. Fun stuff. I'm sure we'll see even more.

Gravenreuth

[4im]

This lawyer v. Gravenreuth is quite well known (and hated) in Germany. He's done lots of "Abmahnungen". This means cashing in money for stuff like usage of the term "FTP Explorer" which supposedly violates a Trademark of Symicron (sp?). A case of use of a chipset codename by shops for advertisement is also well-known.

Of course, he only evers goes after smaller fish, but doesn't dare trying the same with bigger companies (unfortunately, or he'd at last get his nose bloody).

I really wonder which name and company this is all about. I'd hate to see SuSE hurt for one of Gravenreuth's usual BS. They definitely need to spend their money on improving their distro, not on laywers (saying this as a long-time SuSE user who is not too convinced of the current 7.3 version).

Abmahnungen

[wiredog]

From the earlier slashdot story on the Killustrator problems: Comment on the German system from a German

Re:Abmahnungen

[alhague]

these German "Abmahnungen" seem like a really bad idea as they can be abused by scum like this lawyer.
an idea that can be exploited is not necessarily a bad idea. Think of an idea just as a tool. Just because you can hurt someone with a hammer, a hammer is not a bad thing by design.

Why do they still exist?
An "Abmahnung" is intended to prevent a lawsuit. The idea behind it is, that company A shall be able to have a means against unfair competition done by company B without having to go to court and have a year-lasting lawsuit. At least that is what the means of "Abmahung" was developed for.
The problem is, that german jurisdiction tends towards the attitude that any online activity can be interpreted as "taking part in brand competition" and therefore "Abmahnung" gets applied to virtually everyone in the same way, be he a hobbyist, an university, an OS-programmer or a company.

-al

Re:In English this time - No Attorney General

[MadEagle]

I don't know where the poster got this from but Freiherr von Gravenreuth is NOT an Attorney General. He is just a lawyer working for his own money.

Human translation

[mvdwege]

Yeah I know, my German is not perfect (I'm Dutch), but those babelfish translations hurt.

Gravenreuth vs. Linux distributor SuSE

After Samba and KIllustrator yet another Open Source program is keeping lawyers busy. Lawyer Guenther Freiherr(1) von Gravenreuth has obtained a preliminary injunction against German Linux distributor SuSE from the Muenchen State Court. The reason seems to be an Open Source program referenced on a SuSE-CD. It appears(2) that Gravenreuth has had the court forbid further shipments of the Neuremberg company's Linux distribution, as long as the contested program's name is used in that. This could lead to substantial losses for SuSE if it can no longer ship the already produced copies.

When asked, Freiherr von Gravenreuth confirmed to have obtained a preliminary injunction against the name(3) of an Open Source program. He declined to name further details because his client would want "to settle with the opposition" and did not want to be named. Christian Egle, press spokesman for SuSE GmbH, declared that his company would make its position known in the coming days.

Notes:

1. Freiherr: a title of minor nobility. Comparable to the English 'Sir'.
2. The original had "Offenbar" which can be translated in a variety of ways. I think that "It appears" is best here.
3. "Kennzeichnung" litteraly means "designation", or "distinguishing aspect". In context, "name" makes sense, but it is not the best translation.

I did have to play a little with the sentence construction, but I think this will make sense.

On a side note: Why does this bloody Windows (I'm at work) insist on raising the focused window? At home (Debian GNU/Linux) I could have left the original article on top and typed in the textbox simultaneously. Now I had to switch constantly. Grrr.

Mart

lawyer: nope, butcould be estoppel

[hawk]

I am a lawyer, but am probably not licensed in your jurisdiction. This is not legal advice, but a statement of general principles. If you apply this to your own situation, you are a moron.

Entrapment is a criminal doctrine, not civil. It applies to the police going too far--convincing someone to commit a crime they otherwise would not (simply asking or offering the crime isn't enough.). THink of Delorean (sp?). The goverment harassed a man with a failing business with repeated opportunities to commit a lucrative time, after repeatedly being told no. They *created* the criminal. This is a far cry from a one time offer.

WHile this doesn't apply, the doctrine of "estoppel" could potentially apply. In a nutshell, this doctrine says, "even though you may be legally correct, your own conduct makes it inequitable for you to be able to make that argument, so you can't."

It would probably be a close call as described above.

hawk, common law lawyer

It's about Krayon again ... Crayon sues, not Adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've heard from a source close to the action he sues SuSE (no pun intended) in the name of crayon, a company which just distributes some lame graphic sets.

*sigh*

Instead of babelfish, use google translation tools

[FortKnox]

Instead of being the typical automaton and use the fish, try the google language translators.
Why?
Cause you can directly link to the translated page.
Something Altavista doesn't like.

Translation from The Register

[frank249]

A reader of The Register provides this translation:


After Samba and kIllustrator, yet another open-source-program fillsthe pockets of lawyers. The [ill-reputed] German lawyer Günther Freiherr von Gravenreuth has won a preliminary injunction at the Munich District Court against the German Linux-distributor SuSE.

The reason seems to be an open-source-software referenced on one of the SuSE-CDs. Apparently Gravenreuth has prohibited the Nurenberg based company from delivering its Linux-distribution,
as long as the disputed program name is contained on the disks.

SuSE could face serious financial losses if the copies already produced cannot be sold.

Being asked, Freiherr von Gravenreuth confirms the preliminary injunction against the name of the open-source-software, but refuses to give any more details, since his client wishes to get a settlement with "the opponent" and doesn't want to be named.

SuSE spokesman Christian Egle says his company will publish a statement in a few days.

Let me try...

[Decimal]

Huh. How did you get that result?

This is what I was given:

----
In A.D. 2002, war was beginning. What happen? SuSe get signal. Main injunction turn on. It's Gravenreuth! A regional court in Munich say "How are you gentlemen! All SuSe distribution are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." Apparently, somebody set SuSe up the bomb. The injunction forbids SuSE to continue to take off every 'zig' until SuSe knows what they are doing.

Attorney general v. Gravenreuth confirmed he was requested to send SuSe on the way to destruction on behalf of a third party, but declined to give further details. What Suse say! Christian Eagle, head of public relations at SuSe, stated his company will move 'zig' and provide more information at a later date. For great justice.
----

Huh. Maybe I accidentally translated into Japanese first...

Update

[Asic Eng]

Well, here is an update to the story.

Basically: it's about Krayon, which used to be part of the KOffice suite. The program is not actually on the SuSE CD, but there is a leftover entry in the KDE menu, labeled Krayon.

Krayon is supposed to conflict with the "Crayon" trademark, which is held by Seidel Softwareservice .

Gravenreuth the "lawyer" who wrote this Abmahnung stated that he's prepared to settle with SuSE.

It's presumed that SuSE will want to settle, too.

Sounds like the guy with the XOR cursor patent.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but this Gravenreuth guy, the attorney, is one of the most hated men in the German IT scene. He has been going to court over cases like these for at least ten years.

A similar thing happened in Silicon Valley. A guy got a patent on the bitwise-XOR cursor. This firm of three lawyers got hold of it. Then every time a hi-tek company was going public - WHETHER THEY USED AN XOR CURSOR OR NOT - they'd file suit. And offer to settle for some non-trivial pittance like $10,000.

Now going public is a touchy proposition, and having a suit pending against you can cost you big time, regardless of the suit's merits. So essentially all the companies knuckled under. It amounted to a small tax on going public.

And the people in question were the most hated in the Silicon Valley financial community for a decade or more. (There were rumors that a hit had been contracted...)

(Funny thing - I once worked for a company that had a patent on the BLINKING cursor, back in the days of character-only terminals. They never used it for this sort of thing - or litigated it at all. Instead they kept it in the pile of patents to be used in a countersuit against anyone who sued THEM for patent infringement.)