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Psion Accuses Intel of Cybersquatting
Save the Netbooks writes "We discussed Psion sending C&Ds late last year over international trademarks held on the term 'netbook' and Dell accusing Psion of fraud last week. Since then Intel has joined in by suing Psion in federal court. On Friday Psion counter-sued Intel (court filing, PDF). SaveTheNetbooks.com has an analysis here. Psion has demanded a jury trial, profits, treble damages, destruction of material bearing the mark 'netbook' and the netbook.com domain (among other things), claiming that they are still actively selling netbooks despite also revealing sales figures showing a minuscule market share. It seems that declaring victory may have been a little premature as it will be months before the dispute plays out in court."
Psion actually did have high-quality handhelds back before they became so commonplace. Unlike a lot of their competitors, they actually included a compiler right on their devices so you could program or modify existing programs. Of course, this is back in the '90s, before even the Newton...
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
They are not there to sue
From Psion themselves:
Is Psion looking for financial compensation?
Although taking someoneâ(TM)s trademark is a serious matter, we have simply asked retailers and
manufacturers to transition to a different descriptive term over a 3 month term. We have not
sought compensation at all from any party contacted. We have no intention of selling the
âNetbookâ(TM) trademark registrations either, valuable as they may be, or of licensing them on a
for-profit basis. We simply wish to continue use of our âNetbookâ(TM) trademark, and to be free to
use it on our future products.
"Assuming around 15,000,000 netbooks were sold in 2008 at a conservative $200 per unit (and that our calculations are correct) Psion had a "netbook" market share of two thousandths of one percent in 2008 - rather low for a company claiming to hold a monopoly over the mark."
and absolutely irrelevant, especially as the sales in 2005 and 2006 show massive amounts of sales, and as they were the sole player in that market then, a 100% share. Within the past 5 years. And Intel's abuse of the trademark led to the Psion share of the netbook marking shrinking.
Psion have this one all wrapped up.
Psion came up with the term.
Psion got the trademark.
Psion made good sales up until 2007 - note this is well within the five year trademark term before it's not in use.
Psion indeed still sell remaining stock.
Intel started using the term 'netbook' in 2008 to describe the systems they were pushing that were in the exact same format as the Psion Netbook and Netbook Pro.
Psion only wanted the websites, bloggers and companies to stop using the term 'netbook' for non Psion products.
Intel's now gone too far, and Psion have had to file suit.
For other entities, they have respected the trademarks - Google has put the term on the banned list for advertisements, for example.