Seems like Discoria Ltd. registered Shareaza as a trademark on Jan. 10 2008, here's the interesting bits:
Word Mark SHAREAZA
Filing Date January 10, 2008
Owner (APPLICANT) Discordia Ltd. LIMITED COMPANY (LTD.) CYPRUS Kimonos, 40 P.C. 3095 Limasool CYPRUS
Attorney of Record JEFFREY A. KIMMEL here's the link to uspto's trademark search: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk, can't link to the results page, just do a search for discordia in all fields.
The law considers a trademark to be a form of property. Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be established through actual use in the marketplace, or through registration of the mark with the trademarks office (or "trademarks registry") of a particular jurisdiction, e.g., the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Couldn't the shareaza project claim use in the marketplace well before Jan 10. 2008?
Slashdot Mirror
Filing Date January 10, 2008
Owner (APPLICANT) Discordia Ltd. LIMITED COMPANY (LTD.) CYPRUS Kimonos, 40 P.C. 3095 Limasool CYPRUS
Attorney of Record JEFFREY A. KIMMEL
here's the link to uspto's trademark search: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk, can't link to the results page, just do a search for discordia in all fields.
IANAL, but I do believe there is some level of prior art to trademarks, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark:
The law considers a trademark to be a form of property. Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be established through actual use in the marketplace, or through registration of the mark with the trademarks office (or "trademarks registry") of a particular jurisdiction, e.g., the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Couldn't the shareaza project claim use in the marketplace well before Jan 10. 2008?