Slashdot Mirror
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?
...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!
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.
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).
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?
In my perfect world (I put that in because otherwise some /. smartass will tell me how things really are, thanks) you wouldn't need to "protect" your trademark against obviously non-infringing non-assaults. And also in my perfect world, you would be penalized for sending out frivolous C&Ds when you should have known better. Again, in my ideal world, a panel of people with common sense would decide when you would have known better. Furthermore, in my perfect world, you will all agree with me and get together and take up a collection to buy me a fully functional animatronic Natalie Portman.
I am not a crackpot.
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.
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
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.
How do you protect your trademark without sending out C&Ds?
Dang - I just posted the answer above. But to recap: you license it. Sell the "offending" party the right to continue using their name for the minimum dollar amount necessary to create a binding contract (which I think is traditionally $1). That way they're in the clear, and in the event that someone else infringes in the future, you can prove that you're aware and have dealt with other infringers in the past.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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
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?
Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.
Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 9 time(s) over the past 90 days.
What happened when Google visited this site?
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.
Malicious software includes 12 trojan(s), 8 exploit(s), 6 scripting exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 2 new process(es) on the target machine.
Malicious software is hosted on 6 domain(s), including keymydomains.com/, ncenterpanel.cn/, updatedate.cn/.
2 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including keymydomains.com/, specialgt.com/.
This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS21844 (THEPLANET).