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Arduino Dispute Reaches Out To Distributors

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what's-in-a-name dept.

szczys writes Two companies are claiming ownership of the Arduino Trademark. The most recent development in this sad state of affairs is a letter from Arduino SRL to long-time Distributors of Arduino products. SRL is claiming they are the real Arduino, but there are some tasty tidbits including a Q/A section with some peculiar answers. From the article: "In short, Arduino LLC has been working on developing the Arduino platform, software, and community while Smart Projects / Arduino SRL was the major official producer of the hardware for most boards. Both are claiming to 'be' Arduino, and going after each other in court. So it’s not strange that Arduino SRL would like to try to keep its hold on the distribution channels."

7 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Happy Birthday Arduino! by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 5, Funny

    Arduino turned 11 yesterday, and like many children of that age, the celebrations were kind of interrupted by its divorced parents' continuing battle for custody....

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  2. Should be simple by kelemvor4 · · Score: 4, Informative
    From TFA:

    It turns out that Smart Projects had trademarked the Arduino brand in Italy in December 2008, before Arduino LLC got around to filing in April 2009 in the USA.

    So... what's to discuss. I don't think there's a law against being a complete asshole, so smart projects wins.

    1. Re:Should be simple by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Informative

      Arduino SLR only filed for the US trademark in September of last year, and it hasn't been granted yet. Arduino LLC (Massachusetts) filed in 2009 and was granted the trademark in 2011. So in the US, Arduino SLR is infringing on Arduino LLC's trademark and their attempts to coerce distributors are tortious interference.

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    2. Re:Should be simple by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From TFA:

      It turns out that Smart Projects had trademarked the Arduino brand in Italy in December 2008, before Arduino LLC got around to filing in April 2009 in the USA.

      So... what's to discuss. I don't think there's a law against being a complete asshole, so smart projects wins.

      You don't "trademark" things -- you register a trademark. Registration is not strictly necessary in most jurisdictions -- as long as you are actively using the branding, it is automatically considered your trademark. Order of registration only matters if you're talking about two commercial entities independently coming up with the same brand. Here we have two entities with an existing contractual relationship. Smart Projects therefore was not ignorant of the informal body that later became Arduino LLC. Who initiated the contract and who came up with the name? What did the original contract say about the name? Clearly the initial contracts were poorly drafted, or there would be a clear answer, and we wouldn't be having this conversation!!

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      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    3. Re:Should be simple by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem with that point of view is that Arduino SLR for years paid a royalty to Arduino LLC to use the name and logo. The Arduino SLR trademark was the equivalent of a "submarine patent" - one of the partners in the development of Arduino (who also did the manufacturing) filed a trademark application in his own name, before the group filed their trademark application, then waited years to pull this stunt, all the while paying a license fee so as not to tip his hand.

      He only did so because Arduino LLC was going to go to a supplier with a much lower cost, so he was going to lose his profits from manufacturing, which are significant because he's selling them at 4x the cost of clones.

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      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. Reminds me of Visicalc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After Visicalc, the first electronic spreadsheet, gave businessmen a reason to buy personal computers (specifically Apple II's), a nasty round of litigation ensued between the company that developed the software (Software Arts) and the company that productized the software (Visicorp, nee Personal Software). Both companies were dragged down as Mitch Kapor and Lotus Development came out with the hit product on the new IBM PC.

    The sage is now a staple of business school curricula on what not to do, I think.

    http://www.bricklin.com/history/saiend.htm

  4. Re:marketting by iamwahoo2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that it was more than just marketing. Prior to Arduino, it as hard to get started in working with microcontrollers. Almost every manufacturer focused their products on already trained engineers. Arduino, from the beginning was primarily targeted toward learning for beginners.
    1. Arduino was cheap
    2. Arduino did not require specialty hardware for programming
    3. The IDE was free, cross platform, and worked out of the box without any complicated set up.
    4. They focused on lots of accessible documentation and learning material.

    Now that Arduino has been successful, everybody else has jumped on the bandwagon and in many ways have developed superior ecosystems. But I credit Arduino for being the trailblazer. I have recently reallly been into MBED and Spark Core, but I doubt that those systems would exist as they are today had it not been for the creators of Arduino.