At 06:52 PM 10/5/97 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
Sigh. A company called I-Planet is trying to trademark the term "Cypherspace", even though we've been using it for a couple of years in the cypherpunk community.
All this fuss is really not such a big deal, as long as the Patent and Trademark Office <http://www.uspto.gov> hears about it. I know nothing about trademark procedure, but I imagine that a letter (or three) to the PTO referencing the right application number on it could scotch an application but quick. Printing out email and adding a stamp seems almost sufficient.
Oh man! Better think again. This really feels like Deja Vue. If you are not familiar with it, take a look at what the Linux community went through when some clown snuck through a trademark on "Linux". You can check out that story at <http://www.ssc.com/linux/trademark/>. He lost, but not without some ugly fighting. Actually, he surrendered the Trademark to Linus Torvalds in exchange for his original filling fees. I think Linus, Linux International, SSC, et al decided that would be cheaper than to continue to litigate, even though the individual in question was facing possible criminal charges over filing a false PTO application. Don't take it lightly and if you can beat it before the Trademark is issued, DON'T WAIT!
Maybe the nice folks at i-planet (I know you're getting this) could just post their application number and save us the trouble of finding it ourselves?
And I checked: The fee for a formal _ex parte_ appeal filing is only $100. I'm sure the i-planet lawyers will spend far more than that defending one of those.
Eric
Mike -- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com (The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!