Linux Trademark Rejected in Australia

daria42 writes "Linus Torvalds' bid to have the word 'Linux' trademarked in Australia has failed, with the local intellectual property regulator sending his lawyer a vitriolic letter deriding efforts to provide evidence the trademark application was legitimate. In the letter, the regulator points out that information from Wikipedia and Google used by the lawyer to support the trademark application is simply not effective in making the case for a trademark to be registered."

Comments

vitriolic?

[efuseekay]

The rejection may be on shaky grounds, but the letter was hardly vitriolic. It is firm, and laid out the causes for rejection in a clear manner (caveat : IANAL).

Anyway, using wikipedia and google to bolster your application may be stretching it a bit...but hey what do I know :).

Re:vitriolic?

[ramblin billy]

You're right about the response letter. As for sources? Look again. The problem with using wikipedia and google as sources wasn't that Intellectual Property Australia rejected them as qualified or legitimate. The problem was that they did not support Linux Mark Institute's argument. In fact, they did the opposite. The IPA is denying the application, in part, because of the existence of too many other legitimate uses of the name. Both wiki and google established the widespread inclusion of the name in many products offered by many different companies. In other words - "linux" is too generic a term to restrict its use to one entity.

This response did not bother LMI. They were basically protecting the name from abusers by claiming it first. If they can't restrict use of the term, neither can anyone else. In this one case, the IPA seems to have made an informed and reasonable decision.

Don't try to explain that to the poster of the article. I have no idea whether stupidity or irrational bias accounts for the poster's inflamatory slant. I'm sitting on some mod points right now, if I could figure a way I'd slap 5 big 'T's on this article, although 'KW' might be more appropriate.

billy - remember the boy who cried 'wolf'?

Its surprising....

[amodm]

that they were using Wikipedia and Google to prove the references. They are good for us people, but in a court.......no way !!

Re:The good, the bad and the ugly

[Lifewish]

This will mean that the Aussie LUGs will need to keep an eye out for slander and libel, and act.

No, this will mean that they can't act. Anyone is free to write their own OS, call it Linux and then either sell it on or complain loudly about how demonstrably buggy Linux is.

Decision doesn't mean anything for other markets

[FlorianMueller]

I don't think this Australian decision has anything to do with the validity of the Linux mark in other places. The information in the article suggests that Linus Torvalds has been poorly represented and/or IP Australia didn't fully understand that Linux is not a "generic" term, or it could be a combination of both.

This passage here looks like the lawyer failed to do his job properly: It is not clear from the declaration in what way Mr Jeremy Malcolm is authorised and qualified to make this declaration on behalf of Mr Linus Torvalds. It should be a routine task to provide documentation that satisfactorily answers that question before it's even asked. Probably a document with Linus' signature (and some official confirmation of its authenticity, such as by a notary public along with a so-called apostille) would have done the job.

I've opened the PDF file of the IP Australia letter, and the examiner says that the decision could be reconsidered on the basis of better evidence. That means some more effort will have to be put into this than printing out a Wikipedia article and a few pages of Google search results. A key question will be "the date when use of the trade mark commenced".

Editors on crack...

[Cody Hatch]

The article was poor, but the summary on /. was retarded. It didn't took a bad article, misunderstood it, spun it in a way seemingly designed to misdirect attention, and failed to convey the important information.

The bottom line is - Linus (or possibly an Australian LUG, the article wasn't entirely clear) was afraid that someone might trademark Linux and do Bad Things with it. So they initiated an attempt to trademark it for themselves, and the relevent authority told them not to be silly, the term was clearly generic.

This is great. First, it's a sign of sanity - all too rare in government bodies in charge of intellectual property protection. Second - it's ten times better for the term to be un-trademarkable than for it to be trademarked, even in the hands of someone theoretically trustworthy.

So, to sum up: 1) You can't trademark the term Linux in Australia. 2) This is a good thing.

Where's the vitriol?

[B747SP]

I don't see any vitriol there. When did Slashdot become a tabloid?

Actually, that smells more like incompetent lawyer than bad government agency. The Australian trademark mob does have a bit of a reputation for being quite firm with registrations - they must be genuine and proper and not half-assed. Any trademark lawyer worth his salt here would know that, and draw up a proper application.

If my students cite Google and Wikipedia as primary sources of reference in the academic papers they submit to me, they fail, and I send them back for a re-write (at their option). Same should apply for trademark applications. What sort of half baked cowboy is this guy?

Editors?!?

[BarryNorton]

The editors sole job here is to judge which submissions, usually by mentioning Microsoft and/or OSS, will incite 'debate' - i.e. receive a lot of posts, supporting advertising revenue.

Slashdot is over...