Comodo Attempting to Register 'Let's Encrypt' Trademarks, And That's Not Right (letsencrypt.org)

Let's Encrypt is a nonprofit aimed at encrypting the entire web. It provides free certificates, and its service is backed by EFF, Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai and others. Despite it being around for years, security firm Comodo, which as of 2015, was the largest issuer of SSL certificates with a 33.6% market share on 6.6% of all web domains, last year in October filed for the trademark Let's Encrypt. The team at Let's Encrypt wrote in a blog post today that they have asked Comodo to abandon its "Let's Encrypt" applications, directly but it has refused to do so. The blog post adds: We've forged relationships with millions of websites and users under the name Let's Encrypt, furthering our mission to make encryption free, easy, and accessible to everyone. We've also worked hard to build our unique identity within the community and to make that identity a reliable indicator of quality. We take it very seriously when we see the potential for our users to be confused, or worse, the potential for a third party to damage the trust our users have placed in us by intentionally creating such confusion. By attempting to register trademarks for our name, Comodo is actively attempting to do just that. Update: 06/23 22:25 GMT by M :Comodo CEO has addressed the issue on company's forum (screenshot).

Comments

Why the Hell didn't Let's Encrypt register it?!

[mrchaotica]

If you don't want somebody else to use a trademark, register it for yourself!

Re:Why the Hell didn't Let's Encrypt register it?!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, they can still register the Yrg'f Rapelcg! trademark...

Re:Why the Hell didn't Let's Encrypt register it?!

[zuckie13]

Well, for one, they don't have to to be the owner of it. In the US, it's first to use, not first to register. It's pretty clear they have been using it well before this application was submitted - an application that says it's not in use by that company yet. I'd love to hope that the trademark office will just reject it, but they'll probably drag this out.

Re:Why the Hell didn't Let's Encrypt register it?!

[evolutionary]

It's a leverage game. The courts would favor Let'sEncrypt trademark (as they basically paid the government for it first). It could also be shown that in using it on such a scale it's purpose is to use Let'sEncrypt's name and in the end the group could get damages for Comodo. but first it has to pay for the lawyers to get. So it's not a matter of who is in the right, but who can use their purse strings to draw this out long enough. Our justice isn't really based on a sense of fair play, rather than whose got bling to play. Kinda like Net Neutrality. :D Hopefully Comodo decides the bad PR and litigation isn't worth it. but they might. I have little doubt they'll suggest a number (in essence blackmail) to get the domain at a "minimal fee". While it's true ideally one would register the web domain but domain != trademark. trademark wins, but only if the money exists to drag in out in court.

Remove Comodo CA

[Anonymous Coward]

Comodo proved themselves that are not trustwordy.

Re:Remove Comodo CA

[flopsquad]

Read their CEO's asinine post. I will never use a Comodo product. Asshats are one thing, but asshats who abuse the IP system and counter-blame the victims of their asshattery really grind my gears.

Given history, Comodo should use "Let's Infect!"

[BenJeremy]

PrivDog, Chomodo, hacks, and issuing certs to malware, Comodo is one company I'd steer clear from in any case.

Re:Given history, Comodo should use "Let's Infect!

[PatientZero]

Who is authorized to certify the Certification Authorities, and what would it take to finally have Comodo's cert revoked?

Hence the trademark

[DrYak]

Someone needs to show paying Comodo customers how to use Let's Encrypt to renew their certs for free.

I think that's the reason why Comodo is trying to own the Let's Encrypt name....

Horrible statement

[Wuhao]

I actually didn't really want to read too deeply into this when the article first came up. I figured it could be a thorny issue and that maybe Comodo had previously used "Let's Encrypt" in marketing somewhere prior to the free campaign. Then I read their CEO's statement, and it's pretty clear that he just plain feels threatened and he acts as if he invented the concept of a 90-day free trial. I can certainly see where he could be losing money; but I guess as an onlooker, if someone can come along and take your money that way, your position was pretty weak in the first place.

So I guess I'd say I now feel that attempting to register this trademark seems pretty abusive, and the person who convinced me of that was Comodo's CEO in his post on his company's forums.

Comodo is dropping it now

[InvisiBill]

In the linked forum thread, from robinalden (Comodo Staff):

With LE now being an operational business, we were never going to take the these trademark applications any further. Josh posted a link to the application and as of February 8th it was already in a state where it will lapse.
Josh was wrong when he said we’d “refused to abandon our applications”. We just hadn’t told LE we would leave them to lapse.
We have now communicated this to LE.