NAI Sending "Sniffer" C&D Letters

RayMarron writes "It seems that NAI's IP lawyers have been billing some hours recently by sending nastygrams asking companies/individuals to stop using their trademarked term 'Sniffer.' Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation has received one. The full text is posted on his news server, and I'm sure one of our readers will post it here. Or visit news.grc.com, grc.news and grc.news.feedback groups. A student at Stanford received one as well and forwarded it to the faculty to handle. Both Gibson (relating a conversation with his IP attorneys) and Stanford's reply seem to agree that 'sniffer' is too generic a term to be a viable trademark and can't be effectively enforced. Is there an IP lawyer in the house?"

Comments

Road to nowhere

[unixwin]

Differently seen companies chasing their tails in copyright infringments,
trade protocol violations and intellectual property rights
are generally the ones which are going to fall pretty soon.
Short on cash and not being able to earn/fund the millions they were used to in the dotgone era they are metamorphosing into scavengers and opportunists ....
SCO is a shining example

The crummy economy is bringing out the best in a lot of Companys, their legal team thinks, "we are getting irrelevant (as a team) , lets think up something to make some money and make sure we dont' get laid off," "hmmm... patent # 5551212 seems to be worth looking into"
and there starts their Road to Hell
Easy money (or so they think) ,lot of publicity (for sure) and a lot of hits on their website ,
so there's a new concept for you
the legal team is now the marketing team

excellent!

[Fux the Pengiun]

Why, wouldn't you know it, IAAIPL (I am an IP lawyer)! Sadly, yes, this is enforceable. "Sniff" is too broad a term to trademark, but "sniffer" is certainly not. Check findlaw.com's take on trademark dilution. NAI believes these's peoples' use of the term "sniffer" dialates their trademark.

However, I think in this case they've gone too far. There's a C&D letter they also sent to the Children's Television Workshop after the Sesame Street producers gave Snuffleupagus HIV last year as part of a bid to raise kids' awareness of AIDS. Apparently NAI didn't want their trademark associated with wherever Snuffleupagus was keeping his "sniffer"