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NetBSD Trademark Application Completed

Posted by Hemos on from the locking-up-the-name dept.

Daniel de Kok writes "The NetBSD Foundation is proud to announce that it has registered the ``NetBSD®'' trademark. The foundation would like to thank Jay Michaelson (Wasabi Systems) for filing the application and providing answers to the US Patent Office, and Carl Oppedahl (Oppedahl & Larson) for giving advice and keeping the Foundation informed about the process. An official policy on the use of the NetBSD® trademark is currently being drafted and will be made public soon."

3 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Re:trivial? by heironymouscoward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually the cost of a trademark registration is quite reasonable. You can do the discovery and filing for around $1000, possibly less if you do some of the paperwork yourself.

    IANAL but I have a few trademarks.

    Patents... OTOH cost 10x more to start with, and considerably more after that if you try to defend them.

    So a registered trademark is a good investment for a small company that fears competition.

    I don't see the immediate benefit to NetBSD, however.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
  2. It is trivial! by eman1961 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I have filed my own paperwork on a couple of trademarks, and the total cost is less than $500. If I remember correctly, the cost of the final filing is about $350, which goes to pay an attorney employed at the patent and trademark office. If you are careful, and understand what can be trademarked, and what cannot, it is really rather easy.

    Acquiring such a trademark means that it is somewhat easier to enforce that others do not use the trademark in their own product names.

    1. Re:It is trivial! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Then, there's the risk-factor. What, really, is the risk of a competing *BSD distribution taking the name of "NetBSD"?

      Someone tried to steal the term "Linux" in 1994 or so, long before anyone heard of it or cared. You can bet it cost Torvolds a lot more money in lawyer fees to trademark a contested term than if he had registered first.

      There's a lot of really important reasons to own a trademark. Without one, forgetting to renew a domain name could be a disaster. There's also hostile code forks, etc etc etc.

      Look at FreeBSD -- it's trademarked, but the trademark is owned by a hostile company and not by FreeBSD. In theory, they could be required to change their name! The reputation cost would be a lot more than a thousand bucks.

      Maybe you are a poor student and $1000 sound like a lot of money, but frankly if any of the NetBSD people have a real job, this isn't financially prohibitive.