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Small OSS Library Project Battles US Corporation
New submitter abesottedphoenix writes "The rural library responsible for the first open source library catalogue is under attack from defence contractor PTFS. More than a decade after rolling out Koha (which we've discussed in the past), they now find themselves in a battle to keep a generic Maori term within the public domain. The story is also covered at Radio NZ. "
I for one note the correct spelling of the word 'Maori' and find this site grinding at my roots up to my boots in incompetence!!
Am I confused today, or did you mispell Maori?
That said, Trademark only applies in a specific field. If whoever it is has a Trademark for anything other than a library, his trademark in no way impacts the small library in question...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I think you mean Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand.
ok. usually i can understand /. summary immediately. sometimes i have to read the article. sometimes i have to do some extra research.
but this summary just does it - it makes so much "no sense" that i have no fucking idea what is it about and i'm just going to skip the topic.
Rich
Not Mori.
Kia ora from Wellington NZ
Maori was definitely misspelt
link to wikipedia article on the Maori term Koha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koha_(custom)
Basically a company who has extended and NOT given back to the community is now wanting the trademark the name of the Open Source product.
http://blog.karit.geek.nz/
An obscure contractor without vowels should be unable to complain, let alone annunciate.
A commercial company that has been reselling an open-source product now wants to claim ownership of the product itself. Because the current owners are not well funded, there is a prospect that they will be able to do so.
The current owners, being incredibly naive, claim to have been under the impression that foreigners couldn't trademark Maori words. (Possibly they've never heard of Coca-Cola. Even now, they're only trying to fight the trademark application in New Zealand, so I'm not sure what (if any) effect that would have internationally.
Short version: PTFS ended up owning the community domain name and a trademark for Koha due to some weird stuff that has happened over the past 12 years. PTFS is not well regarded by the general community due to how they try to confuse users into thinking theirs is the only version, their practices which (from what I can tell) make versioning a nightmare, and their lack of regard for the community. The community does not want them to gain any more ground.
Sure, PTFS counts some DoD entities among its clients, but it's odd to refer to a company that has clients like the Holocaust Museum and the National Library of Medicine as a defense contractor.
That being said, it's super shady for a company that got started solely to provide end-user support for an OSS system to try and trademark that system's name.
Can someone explain to me how this isn't a violation of the copyleft GPL Koha is distributed under?
1. rural library responsible for the first open source library catalogue
2. defence contractor PTFS
3. More than a decade after rolling out Koha
4. in a battle to keep a generic Mori term within the public domain
Is Koha a generic Mori (Maori) term? What is a library catalog? Like a public library catalog of the books in the library? Who is PTFS?
As far as the TM goes, If I make up a word called Azkio but it turns out to be a generic term in a language that less than .0002% of the people in the world would recognize does that mean a TM is invalidated?
here's a very interesting recent discussion about this - with comments from PTFS/Liblime
http://diligentroom.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-exemplar-of-stupid-koha-vs-liblime-trademark/
but this summary just does it - it makes so much "no sense" that i have no fucking idea what is it about
Like Google News, Slashdot doesn't have an editor. You wand your submission accepted, all you need to do is hit ther geek's hot buttons in your headline.
sounds like a job for Anonymous. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
IANAL But the Tabasco story is a famous and an interesting trademark case .
Since Tabasco is a state in Mexico and a name for a pepper, McIllhenny understandably had a hard time cementing its claim. Right or wrong, McIllhenny vigorously defends this hard-won mark to this day.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
For all the great things about this country, they are completely overshadowed by things that are just plain and simply evil.
The group would be better of using the money to advertise whatever new name they choose. Sure they could fight the court battle win or lose the lawyers get the money. They might win with a little publicity. They might lose with a little publicity. Or they could use the money they get to take out ads in multiple papers and magazines and establish their new name as a powerful brand.
Instead of spending their own resources to dispute the trademark, they ought to consider if the trademark covers their own domain of application - similarly to how Apple Inc and Apple corps are both trademarks built on a single English word, but technically don't cover the same area - one is a trademark on an IT brand, the other is a trademark on a music store, and one should not be able to confuse one for the other (although they have fought over the name, needlessly really). Is LibLime asking them to C&D the use of the name? Can they coexist without confusing their client base over each other's existence? Are they fretting over the problem unnecessarily?
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
I'm from Tasmania, where our most recognisably tasmanian icon the Tasmanian Devil(TM) (since we killed the Tigers) is trademarked by a US company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Devil_(Looney_Tunes)
I chipped in $50, I feel better. Try it!
Just legally possible, although not morally defensible. The law, we all know well, does not always equate to justice. And that is especially true of IP law, of course.
By referencing this case I was pointing out that the NZ library has every reason to be worried. Since this rather creepy little company going after the Maori trademark has plenty of creepy company. I had no intention of defending them.
Personally I am outraged by Daddy Pepperbucks century of non-stop litigious bullying. They even went after a punk rocker who used a "Tabasco" moniker. Was it Annie Tabasco..? or Suzy Tabasco...? or... Someone help me here. The early 80s are a bit.... fuzzy.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Let face it if you start any kind of business, blog or public project you now need to get it trademarked from day one to prevent the vultures from circling you a decade later in the unlikely event that you are even a little successful. $275 per class for a TEAS Plus application that meets the requirements of 37 C.F.R. 2.22 and 2.23 $325 per class for an application filed electronically using the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) $375 per class for an application filed on paper That only for filling trademark I did not mention alternate domain suffix like .org .ca .fr .xxx
and patent... It not higher tax that killing the economy it all the damn parasite lawyers.
but this kind of behaviour is not OK in New Zealand. What if someone from NZ snuck over and trademarked "Honour" (or "Honor" on your side of the pond)?
Frankly, I'm fed up with corporations behaving like this then bleating that they are only doing it to secure their profits which justifies anything as you know. Time they got taken down a peg or two.
Let's hope that the Liblime company jumps all over http://koha.com/, the Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association as well.
I mean, they're infringing the trademark/copyright whatever it is too, aren't they?
If they don't, then they fck themselves for not pursuing protection of "their" assets, no ?
They are all shit none of them can compete fairly.
They all make and sell everything as cheap as they can.
Source something on the cheap then sell it to you the same price as if it were from America.
Look at my company we can only do business if I do a full on ringing endorsement of communism or American prison labor.
This is not capitalism it is legal theft of the consumer and exploitation of labor.
Greed.
This summary and the ensuing discussion are so full of dumb and FUD, it's hard to know where to start. I'll list a few bullets:
1) If managing one of the Navy's library catalogs makes PTFS/LibLime a "defense contractor," that's a serious diffusion of the term.
2) PTFS/LibLime has held the same trademark continuously in the US for several years without any attempts to limit its use. The same applies to this trademark.
3) PTFS/LibLime's project is also OSS: https://github.com/liblime/LibLime-Koha
4) The LibLime component of PTFS is composed of fewer than a dozen people. PTFS as a whole is under 50... smaller than a lot of libraries.
The real issue here is that there is an unresolved project fork with an ugly, circuitous history. A conflict erupted over project direction and management, the "ownership" of the project was diffuse, and now both sides claim that they have rights to the name. Ironically, HLT is the side that claims that LibLime does not have rights to use the name. However, LibLime does not contend the converse, recognizing that plain fact that the name ownership is not clearly resolvable.
Everyone loves little neighborhood libraries, and everyone hates "big, evil defense contractors," so you can see who receives the benefit of the narrative frame. HLT is doing their best to work this framing, facts be damned. Meanwhile, they can't even take the issue seriously enough to stop their own trademark application from being abandoned from inattention.