Python trademark under attack -- the PSF needs your help

[Steven D'Aprano]

Hello all,


The Python Software Foundation is the organisation which protects and
manages the "boring" bits of keeping a big open source project alive: the
legal and contractual parts, funding for projects, trademarks and
copyrights.

If you are based in Europe, or know somebody who uses Python in Europe, the
PSF needs your help.

There is a company in the UK who has applied to trademark the name "Python"
and are claiming the *exclusive* right to use the word "Python" for
software, servers, and web services over the entire European Union.

You can read more about this here:

http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2013/02/python-trademark-at-risk-in-europe-we.html

If you have documentation of European user groups, trade associations,
books, conferences, scans of job advertisements for Python programmers,
software that uses some variation of "Python" in the name, etc. your
evidence will be helpful in defeating this attempted grab of the Python
name.

You can also testify to the fact that when you read or hear of the
name "Python" in relation to computers and the Internet, you think of
Python the programming language.


Thank you.

 

[Stefan Behnel]

Giles Coochey, 15.02.2013 12:24:

Hello all,

The Python Software Foundation is the organisation which protects and
manages the "boring" bits of keeping a big open source project alive: the
legal and contractual parts, funding for projects, trademarks and
copyrights.

If you are based in Europe, or know somebody who uses Python in Europe, the
PSF needs your help.

There is a company in the UK who has applied to trademark the name "Python"
and are claiming the *exclusive* right to use the word "Python" for
software, servers, and web services over the entire European Union.

You can read more about this here:

http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2013/02/python-trademark-at-risk-in-europe-we.html


If you have documentation of European user groups, trade associations,
books, conferences, scans of job advertisements for Python programmers,
software that uses some variation of "Python" in the name, etc. your
evidence will be helpful in defeating this attempted grab of the Python
name.

Err...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=python


One would think that is enough. 8,457 published results - practically all
of them referring to Python (the language), none to my knowledge referring
to [domain stripped]

Surely and open/shut case.

I'm sure it's a pure marketing thing for their domain. I'd expect the
number of links to their site to rise rapidly during the next weeks, that's
very likely worth the bit of money they'd pay to their lawyer(s). Seriously
- who's ever heard of them before this? So it worked already, didn't it?

My advice: don't mention their name or their domain in any of your blog
posts etc., and definitely don't link to them.

Stefan

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Giles Coochey wrote:

[...]

Err...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=python

One would think that is enough.

Giles, thank you for taking the time to respond, but I'm sorry to say that I
don't think your response is helpful. Unless you are a trademark lawyer,
your intuition about how trivially easy this will be is probably not going
to be accurate.

You would probably think it was presumptuous for a trademark lawyer to
venture an opinion on how easy it is to write some piece of software. The
same applies in reverse. We need to listen to the experts in European
trademark law, those who know what sort of evidence the European Trademark
Office consider meaningful and significant. These people have told the
Python Software Foundation what needs to be done to fight this trademark
application, and trust me, "spend two seconds doing a search on Amazon" is
*not* it.

Dismissing the trademark grab as:

Surely and open/shut case.

is the simplest way to ensure that the PSF loses their appeal and the right
to the name "Python" in Europe.

If anyone has the sort of documentary evidence which the PSF has requested,
and can scan and email them to the PSF, that will be helpful. If anyone is
willing and able to donate money to the foundation to help with the legal
expenses, estimated at tens of thousands of dollars, to challenge this
trademark application, that will also be helpful. If you have a blog,
please consider spreading the word.

The PSF needs all the help it can get, but it needs to be the sort of help
set out here:

http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2013/02/python-trademark-at-risk-in-europe-we.html

If anyone is thinking of doing something trivially easy which anyone can do,
such as googling "python", trust me, the PSF has already done it. The PSF
is looking for the sort of help that they can't get by typing into a search
engine. If anyone can help, that's great. If you can't help, then please
don't discourage those who can by claiming this is trivial.

Thank you.

 

[Giles Coochey]

Giles Coochey wrote:

[...]

Err...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=python

One would think that is enough.

Giles, thank you for taking the time to respond, but I'm sorry to say that I
don't think your response is helpful. Unless you are a trademark lawyer,
your intuition about how trivially easy this will be is probably not going
to be accurate.

You would probably think it was presumptuous for a trademark lawyer to
venture an opinion on how easy it is to write some piece of software. The
same applies in reverse. We need to listen to the experts in European
trademark law, those who know what sort of evidence the European Trademark
Office consider meaningful and significant. These people have told the
Python Software Foundation what needs to be done to fight this trademark
application, and trust me, "spend two seconds doing a search on Amazon"is
*not* it.

Dismissing the trademark grab as:

Surely and open/shut case.

is the simplest way to ensure that the PSF loses their appeal and the right
to the name "Python" in Europe.

If anyone has the sort of documentary evidence which the PSF has requested,
and can scan and email them to the PSF, that will be helpful. If anyoneis
willing and able to donate money to the foundation to help with the legal
expenses, estimated at tens of thousands of dollars, to challenge this
trademark application, that will also be helpful. If you have a blog,
please consider spreading the word.

The PSF needs all the help it can get, but it needs to be the sort of help
set out here:

http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2013/02/python-trademark-at-risk-in-europe-we.html

If anyone is thinking of doing something trivially easy which anyone can do,
such as googling "python", trust me, the PSF has already done it. The PSF
is looking for the sort of help that they can't get by typing into a search
engine. If anyone can help, that's great. If you can't help, then please
don't discourage those who can by claiming this is trivial.

Thank you.

In order to register "Python" in Europe it has to be deemed registrable
by OHIM.

It is clearly not registrable as there is substantial prior use.

--
Regards,

Giles Coochey, CCNA, CCNAS
NetSecSpec Ltd
+44 (0) 7983 877438
http://www.coochey.net
http://www.netsecspec.co.uk
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Chris Rebert]

I'm not offering much help here, more like wondering aloud. Doesn't

Google (not to mention other software companies) have an interest staked in
binding the Python name with the Python language? I can't imagine
python.co.uk staging a successful campaign against one of the best-known
companies in computers (that employs Python's creator, no less).

That very last part is actually no longer the case:
https://tech.dropbox.com/2012/12/welcome-guido/
Regardless, your general point still stands.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

I'm sure it's a pure marketing thing for their domain. I'd expect the
number of links to their site to rise rapidly during the next weeks,
that's very likely worth the bit of money they'd pay to their lawyer(s).

I doubt that. The amount of time required to make a trademark application is
significant, measured in months or years of elapsed time and persons-days
or -weeks, in effort.

Seriously - who's ever heard of them before this? So it worked already,
didn't it?

Just because they aren't Microsoft or Apple doesn't mean they aren't a
serious vendor in their space.

My advice: don't mention their name or their domain in any of your blog
posts etc., and definitely don't link to them.

This would be the "there's no such thing as bad publicity" theory.

 

[Quint Rankid]

You can also testify to the fact that when you read or hear of the
name "Python" in relation to computers and the Internet, you think of
Python the programming language.

Has anyone considered a search of Amazon for Python, or more
particularly searches at sites that Amazon uses to do business in
Europe?

 

[llanitedave]

The news is featured as an article on Groklaw now.

Those folks are on it...

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130215074839583

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Folks,

It seems that people have been sending threats and abuse to the company
claiming a trademark on the name "Python". And somebody, somewhere, may
have launched a DDOS attack on their website.

The Python Software Foundation has asked the community for restraint and
civility during this dispute. Abuse and threats just bring the Python
community into disrepute.

http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2013/02/asking-for-civility-during-our.html

 

[Michael Poeltl]

hi,

there are also

ruby.co.uk
lua.co.uk

in my opinion someone who is on the ruby-/lua-malinglist too should warn these guys

Folks,

It seems that people have been sending threats and abuse to the company
claiming a trademark on the name "Python". And somebody, somewhere, may
have launched a DDOS attack on their website.

The Python Software Foundation has asked the community for restraint and
civility during this dispute. Abuse and threats just bring the Python
community into disrepute.

yeah - that's also my opinion!

Michael