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Sparc Sends SparkFun Electronics C&D Letter
moogied writes "SparkFun.com, a electronics component provider, has been sent a cease and desist letter by Sparc in response to the lengthy trademark process that SparkFun is participating in. The letter states 'Because the dominant portion of the SparkFun mark, namely, SPARK, is phonetically identical and nearly visually identical to SI's SPARC mark, and because it is used in connection with identical goods, we believe confusion is likely to occur among the relevant purchasing group.' SparkFun.com has provided the entire contents of the letter, with a breakdown of points it feels are most relevant."
guess who won't be buying any more sparc servers?
I love spark-fun. I bought cheap GPS modules from them. They have a nack for bulk-buying cool stuff that inventors need. They also respond to criticism and suggestions. Heck, I should work for them, don't you think?
...slashdot readers are bringing SparkFun.com to it's knees as we speak.
Stand back, SPARC, we'll take care of this!
THL phish sticks
Come on, now. They have SPARK in the name; they're an electronics company. The name is a playful moniker and nobody would ever confuse them with Sparc.
When I was in the USAF they called the electricians "spark chasers". ANY electronics company should be able to have "spark" in their name. For Sun to lay claim to a common word that describes the first thing anybody thinks of when they think of electricity (when Sin's is spelled differently) is ludicrous. It's like the ApleFrosting company suing anybody who sells any kind of apple product wit "apple" in the name.
I lost a lot of my esteem for Sun with this. I wonder if it has anything to do with Oracle?
Free Martian Whores!
Sun: "Because the dominant portion of the SparkFun mark, namely, SPARK, is phonetically identical and nearly visually identical to SI's SPARC mark, and because it is used in connection with identical goods, we believe confusion is likely to occur among the relevant purchasing group."
And here I thought that dominant portion of SparkFun was "Fun"!
That the dominant part of SPARC is not fun.
Nullius in verba
So when is the FARC going to send Fark.com a C&D?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I can't wait for IBM to sue BMW because after all, both of them share the letters "BM" and that might confuse a lot of people. Disney could probably have a go at McDonald's because after all, Donald is the name of a famous Disney character....
Hopefully Sparkfun won't get a retarded judge, and this will be laughed out of court.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Sun has nothing to do with this. SPARC International owns the trademark, not Sun.
eclecti.cc
Sun named their product line after a natural phenomenon, a spark, and is now going after any one using the natural phenomenon's namesake?
No. Sun Microsystems is a member of Sparc International, along with a slew of other companies (TI, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc, etc -- http://www.sparc.org/members.html), but Sparc International != Sun.
IANAL, but Sparc International has a legal obligation to protect its trademark, correct? They may not want to pick on SparkFun but if they don't demonstrably protect their trademark, they can lose it.
How do you protect your trademark without sending out C&Ds?
First SparkFun get a stupid cease & desist, *then* it gets slashdotted. Some days, it all just goes downhill from the git-go...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
You can also offer others a license to use your mark for some nominal fee, I believe. From a legal perspective (IANAL, by the way) I think that's probably just as good as litigating it. The problem probably comes from disagreement about what constitutes a reasonable nominal fee, and the licensee's concerns about their ability to control the use of their mark (eg, if someone who doesn't like the licensee tried to "steal" their mark by going through the licensor).
So SPARC now lays claim to http://www.*sparc*.* as well as http://www.*spark*.*
Does this mean I can't register www.sparccankissmyass.com without getting a C&D letter?
A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding...
So SPARC is something like SPARK...
And some nitwit company that has seen its stock price fall a huge percentage because it spends far too much on psychotic lawyers than it does on R&D is filing a lawsuit about 'Spark' being close to 'sparc'. And this idiot lawyers have convinced someone that they 'own' the word 'spark'.
Am I reading this correct? Please tell me that this is not Sun Microsystems! Founded by geniuses, creators and leaders in the workstation industry, the true visionary company of the valley.
You would think that these guys would be too embarrassed to show their faces in the valley again after something as stupid as this.
These guys have no shame.
Since the world's population is bursting and there is ...so...much....surplus...talent available, why don't we just put all these dumb fucks out of their (and our) misery. "take out the trash, clean out the crusty, and let them spend the rest of their days walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain."
What! There's a law against that too? Law or no law, sooner or later, it's going to be cheaper just to kill them all.
It's a shame that with all their education and vested options, they still don't realize this.
Aren't you required to vigorously defend your trademark or else stand to lose it?
Yeah, it may be ridiculous, and yeah, a judge may decide that it is indeed ridiculous as well. But they -still- have to go through these claims in order to vigorously defend.
Vigorous defense of one's trademark does not demand that one pursue ridiculous or even questionable claims. All it means is that you can't knowingly allow violation of your trademark, then attempt to enforce it later. Where a case appears legally questionable, or outright stupid, there is absolutely no duty to pursue it. All the normal rules of civil procedure apply, including Rule 11. "Vigorous defense of trademark" is not a defense for filing a claim unsupported by law.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
(Removed by user)
I don't want all of my hacker/maker sites slashdotted at once!
SparkFun should be laughing all the way to the bank, once they get past the lawyerly nuisance.
Yep. All you need is one jumped-up shyster snake...er "lawyer"... and we're off to the races again.
If SPARC, or their parent corp Sun Microsystems, wants to be good citizens, the lawyer who sent this should lose his job.
I might agree with you, but their trademark is "SPARC", not "Spark".
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Aren't you required to vigorously defend your trademark or else stand to lose it?
That doesn't mean you're obligated to make over-reaching claims about your trademark. The obviously correct position would be to send C&D letters to people using 'sparc' without permission. Perhaps even to a company that sold "spark servers". That's all that's needed. Their trademark on "SPARC" would not be weakened at all by the continued existence of "SparkFun".
Firefox warning; apparently www.sparc.org/index.html has been reported as an attack site. Nice.
That's a very narrow interpretation. If you allow your trademark to be diluted, then you weaken your ability to defend it later, even with more meritorious claims against different infringers.
Failure to defend a trademark can be used to overturn the trademark assignment if contested.
IANAL, obviously. But I've been responsible for trademarks at several employers, and had lengthy conversations with attorneys on the matter -- this is just my understanding based on those conversations. Of course, since they IP attorneys get paid to contest infringing use, they are motivated to ensure I want to vigorously defend my trademarks...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"Vigorous defense of trademark" is not a defense for filing a claim unsupported by law.
Here's the issue: the only place where questions of law are settled is a court room. Which in turn means that the only way to find out whether something is unsupported by law is to file a lawsuit and see where the chips fall.
Yes, some cases are highly unlikely to succeed. I doubt Sun would be able to successfully sue the Pope for trademark infringement. But I don't think that anyone here knows enough law to unequivocally state that this claim is unsupported by law.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Aren't you required to vigorously defend your trademark or else stand to lose it?
If they were genuinely concerned about losing their trademark, while admitting that SparkFun is not at all likely to be confused with Sparc, they could grant SparkFun trademark rights for $1. Basically tell them "we agree not to sue you for infringing what we believe is our rightful trademark, in exchange for consideration".
I'm tired of that damn "the law made me do it!" excuse. No, it didn't. There are plenty of remedies outside the courts that can accomplish the same ends.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've ordered from both companies, but not anymore. I will continue to support SparkFun, even if they are forced to change their name. Sun/Oracle can go to hell.
Here's the issue: the only place where questions of law are settled is a court room. Which in turn means that the only way to find out whether something is unsupported by law is to file a lawsuit and see where the chips fall.
That is not a correct conclusion. Questions of law are only settled by the court, but many questions have already been settled. An attorney's job is to research existing law (both statutes and prior cases that have been decided in court) and make a prediction about what should happen if a new case is taken to court. Sometimes it's impossible to reach a conclusion, other times the conclusion is nearly certain; usually it's in between. The rules of ethics and of civil procedure prohibit attorneys from bringing suit when their argument is unsupported by existing law or a reasonable extension of existing law. This is rarely enforced with vigor, because there is often some type of legitimate argument that can be made to support even a very weak case - but not always.
But I don't think that anyone here knows enough law to unequivocally state that this claim is unsupported by law.
Don't be too sure about that. I'm not a trademark attorney, so I wouldn't venture a conclusive opinion about this case without doing some additional research first - but some here may be qualified to do so. With that said, my prior post was not intended to state that this case is meritless. I don't think it is. I think it's weak, but plausible. It's weak on the facts, not the law. If I were SPARC's attorney, I would have discouraged them from pursuing it.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
...what are they going to call sparkplugs now?
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
electronic components has no difficulty differentiating "SPARC" from "SparkFun". While a SPARC CPU is in fact an electronic component, it is one that can only be used if one is building a specialized sort of computer (i.e. one that won't run x86 code and can't run any Windows / OSX apps). If one is going to design an electronic circuit with any hope of functioning, one has to know EXACTLY what components one is designing into it.
The population of actual electronic component customers likely to mistake SPARC for SparkFun is exactly zero. There is NO public likely to be confused by this.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The Guardians of Clan Donald
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Lord Macdonald of Macdonald, premier clan chief of Clan Donald, has appointed Ronald W McDonald to be Sergeant-Major at Arms of the Guardians of Clan Donald: the linear descendant of the chief's bodyguard. It will be open to all Macdonalds and their septs, dependents, and descendants, who are in good standing in the community. Successful applicants will be enlisted as Sergeants at Arms and issued with a Warrant in the form of a Certificate which is suitable for framing. The cost of membership is £1 (postal orders please) or £2 sterling for overseas applicants.
The Guardians of Clan Donald aim to uphold and protect the dignity and honour of the ancient and honourable name of Clan Donald by all legal means. One specific aim is to offer moral support to Mary Blair, proprietor of McMunchies, a small sandwich bar in Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire, who is being threatened with legal action by McDonald's Restaurants, the fast food chain, for daring to use the prefix "Mc" in the name of her shop. When interviewed in BBC2's "The Money Programme" a top trademark lawyer made it clear that McDonald's have not a legal leg to stand on. Instead they rely on their unlimited financial resources to bully small businesses who cannot afford to fight back.
This type of business ethics might be good practice in the USA but it is singularly un-British. McDonald's have registered most names beginning with 'Mc' as trademarks, not with any intention of using them, but to try and stop anyone of that name setting up a restaurant. Even my own name Ronald McDonald has been registered as one of their trademarks. This is an attack on Scottish culture when even our very names are hijacked.
It has been stated by government ministers that a person is fully entitled to use their own name for business. But McDonald's has grown so large it is supra-national, with an advertising budget bigger than the Gross National Product of many countries. It is time that the government took in hand this matter of bullying of small businesses by companies such as McDonald' s. Perhaps this might be a subject for debate by a future Scottish Parliament.
If McDonald's persists in its action against McMunchies they are disgracing the ancient and honourable name of Macdonald. In the days when a clan chief had the power of pit and gallows the ultimate penalty for shaming the clan name was to be flung over a cliff but it seems unlikely that any executive of McDonald's Restaurants would volunteer for this!
Injustice and bullying are matters that concerns everyone and not just those affiliated to one clan. To this end, the Guardians of Clan Donald have decided to launch a petition calling upon McDonald's Restaurants to drop their action against Mary Blair of McMunchies Sandwich Bar. Petitions should be sent to the Guardians of Clan Donald or direct to McDonald's Restaurants, 11-59 High Road, East Finchley, London N2 8AW. (Fax Number 0181-700 7050 Telephone 0181-700 7000). A personal letter, telephone call or fax to McDonald's condemning their action is also effective.
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Sun is not Sparc but a Sparc compliant company. As a trademark holder I know the US gov makes it very clear that you can lose your trademark for not defending it. I would bet Sparc doesn't care about sparkfun but their lawyers do because Americans do stupid things like vote a load of lawyers into the government who watch over their own and have made it so what Sparc's lawyers are doing is effectively a requirement for having a trademark.
Lawyers love to make work for their own which is why lawyers should be banned from running for office.
Scumbag lawyers don't get paid when gentlemen act like gentlemen and do things like that.
This is about scumbag IP lawyers chasing ambulances looking for money.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And in general, you cannot trademark an English word when used for descriptive purposes. Given that SparkFun makes products that when constructed by hobbyists, almost certainly do precisely what their name implies, in order for SparkFun to be infringing, SPARC would have to claim that they hold the trademark for the word "Spark" when used descriptively, which simply cannot be the case. My prediction? If this went to court, SPARC would almost certainly get their asses handed to them, and SparkFun would probably get treble damages in their countersuit.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yikes.
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.sparc.org/&hl=en
What is the current listing status for sparc.org?
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Of the 244 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 3 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-10-22, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-10-22.
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