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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."
...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
That the dominant part of SPARC is not fun.
Nullius in verba
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.
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.
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?
In other news, a number of large companies have suffered downtime recently from switching from data center servers to Arduinos for their mission critical applications.