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Trademarking Open-Source Projects?
dautelle asks: "I had the nasty surprise to receive a letter from a company in New-Zealand asking me to stop using the 'jade' name they have recently trademarked (my open source project has been Java Addition to Default Environment or JADE for short, long before their trademark filing date). I am going to comply, but I wonder if our open-source projects should be trademarked (cost >300$) to prevent such misfortune?"
As for who had the name first - From the History on Dautelle's page:
"version 1.0 was # September 12, 2000: Official release of JADE 1.0"
I myself am a New Zealander, in fact, I work just down the road from JADE's HQ, and from their History Page
"Jade Software Corporation combined its research and development capability with its real-world IT experience to create a new enterprise application development environment called JADE that was launched in 1996."
There it is.. Case Closed.
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
Just rename yours to "Firebird"
That's a catchy name!
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All of which requires, hiring a lawyer. High-sounding principles get you mod points, but they don't pay your legal bills.
/start/ with them hearing from your lawyer, because otherwise it is an empty threat (which they'll guess) and you're very likely to say something that can seriously hurt your case and reduce your chance of winning and even if you do win, your resultant damages.
I'd like to agree and disagree with this sentiment.
I agree because you should never claim "you'll be hearing from my lawyer". You should
However, a letter from a lawyer is not horribly expensive. If you draft a very precise letter in advance, and ask them to look over it at their normal rate, and correct any issues, you can get in and out in 1-2 hours. It would be likewise a couple of hours or less if you go to a lawyer that deals in trademark law regularly--he'll have a bunch of pre-fab letters and his secretary will pick the right one for your circumstances. Yes, that's $100-$400 (lawyer rates vary, and how much time they'll want to bill will vary--call around), but you're very likely to nip the problem in the bud and never hear from them again.
If they choose to continue to harass you, your lawyer (yes, now you really have a lawyer and when you wave around "you'll hear from my lawyer" they'll know you mean it), will likely take the case at reasonable rates or on contingency. If you have proof of using the mark for any period of time before they used it or claimed it, or if you are clearly in an unrelated field (or both), then the case is open and shut and few lawyers would turn it down.
The good news, however, is that no lawyer would come after you under such circumstances because the case is unwinnable, if they know you already have a lawyer and are not afraid to use it.
Responding to them personally is the worst thing you can do. Ignore them with prejudice, or have a lawyer send them a letter. Do not respond yourself unless you have training in trademark law, and even then you probably shouldn't respond yourself.
The jade package in Debian is "James Clark's DSSSL Engine", and it's been there since 1997, and has copyright dates going back to 1994, so I think James has precedence over both you and this company.
I doubt if James would mind that your quite different project has the same name, but he might have some interest in an upstart company threatening people who use the name, and might be willing to work with you on dealing with their threats. His home page is at http://www.jclark.com/ (and the jade project page is at http://www.jclark.com/jade/).