

Python Trademark Filer Ignorant Of Python? - aurelianito
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2013/02/responding-to-pythons-batsignal/index.htm

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yen223
A lot of programmers in my dinky third-world country haven't heard of Python
or Ruby - most folks here think web development begins with Java and ends with
PHP.

That said, I think that CEO is full of shit.

~~~
signed0
It's one thing for a programmer not to know about the existence of Python, but
it's another thing entirely for sysadmins not to know (their websites run
Debian). To make matters worse they are trying to develop their own cloud
platform, so they would need somewhat more sophisticated sysadmins than if
they were just hosting a simple PHP website.

I would guess that at some point one of the developers/sysadmins brought up
the fact that their name conflicted with an open source programming language,
and management choose to ignore them.

~~~
qw
No technical staff were consulted at all:

    
    
      Tim confirmed that he'd not involved any technical staff
      in the decisions he'd made about the Python product brand,
      and told me he regretted that as it would probably have
      helped him understand the likely reaction to his trademark
      challenge.

~~~
gus_massa
In a quick Google search
[http://www.google.com/search?q=python&pws=0](http://www.google.com/search?q=python&pws=0)
(I hope I've killed personalization correctly.) the Python-language gets 9 of
the first 10 places, and the Python-snake gets only one place and the news
section at the bottom.

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ScottBurson
IANAL, but I think the PSF's trademark is on very shaky ground.

CMU Common Lisp has had an innovative, high-performance compiler called Python
since _before_ van Rossum invented the scripting language. A Common Lisp
compiler and a programming language are, seems to me, very much in the same
market space; I do not think the PSF could successfully argue in court that
they do not overlap -- certainly not at the same time they were arguing that a
cloud service _does_ overlap a scripting language.

I'm sure van Rossum was unaware of CMUCL's Python when he named his language.
But that doesn't matter in trademark law; you don't get to claim a trademark
someone else is already using just because you didn't know about them.

And I believe that using a mark that was already in use gives you a very weak
claim, if any, to your trademark.

CMUCL is, by the way, still in use.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Irrelevant. If you don't defend a "Trademark", any rights you have to it go
away. You're required to DEFEND your Trademark to keep ownership -- and even
if you have a common-law Trademark (which is what you're claiming CMUCL has on
"Python"), if you allow someone else to register a Trademark at the federal
level and fail to oppose the registration, you can lose your rights that way.

IANAL, but I've read a lot about Trademark law, and I've talked to more than
one IP attorney about it. For reference, see for example [1] and [2]. It's not
like patent law where prior art can invalidate a bad patent. It's defend-it-
or-lose-it.

[1] [http://www.blackweb20.com/2009/11/25/the-consequences-of-
not...](http://www.blackweb20.com/2009/11/25/the-consequences-of-not-
protecting-and-defending-your-trademarks/)

[2] [http://www.adlilaw.com/importance-of-monitoring-your-
tradema...](http://www.adlilaw.com/importance-of-monitoring-your-trademark/)

~~~
ScottBurson
You're missing my point. I'm not suggesting at all that the CMUCL developers
would want to stop the PSF from using the name Python. That would be the
situation that your argument is relevant to.

No, I'm making quite a different point, about the ability of the _PSF_ to stop
_anyone else_ from using the name. In order to be able to assert trademark
rights against someone else, you have to have a valid trademark to begin with.
If your use of the mark was never exclusive to begin with, I don't see how you
can claim to have an exclusive right to it now.

Perhaps in the US, since the PSF has registered the mark and the CMUCL people
didn't contest it (in time), the PSF now has an exclusive right to it.
Although here another point comes into play: I've never heard of the PSF
attempting to prevent CMUCL from using the name. Supposing they haven't, a
case can now be made that the PSF has failed to defend it and therefore has
lost their exclusive right to it. So I think that can cut both ways. CMUCL has
no exclusive right to the name -- I seriously doubt they care -- but if some
third party started to use it, I wonder if the PSF could prevail over the
latter in court.

But all that aside, this case is in the EU, where as far as I understand, the
PSF has no registered trademark anyway. I think POBox Hosting could make a
very strong case that, since CMUCL's Python has certainly been used in the EU,
the PSF has no _exclusive_ right to the name there.

~~~
sophacles
I'm pretty sure they would be fine with stopping anyone from having an
exclusive trademark, as a second prize. Because you know, the company in the
EU is trying for an exclusive trademark. So, maybe they loose the best option,
but win when they don't have to rename _everything_ because it violates
someone's exclusive mark?

~~~
ScottBurson
See my reply to Volpe below.

~~~
sophacles
Wow you are a total shill. Obviously PSF is acting hostilely as you are
insinuating, because they wanted to minimize confusion, or maybe they just
wanted to minimize confusion.

~~~
ScottBurson
I am not a shill. I am a longtime user of CMUCL and its now-more-popular fork,
SBCL. The name collision has been an annoyance for years -- I always have to
qualify which Python I'm talking about. This hardly minimizes confusion.

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krautsourced
Regardless of whether or not he had hear of Python (which I find very
unlikely), if one planned to register a trademark, one would have to do some
research in the first place. And that would involve a google search at the
very least. And at least on my results even the bloody _real_ Python (snake)
shows up first a dozen or so pages back after only Python (language) links.
And his dinky little company never comes up. So, yeah. Pretty obvious he's
lying - or very, very dumb. Either way it does not show him in a good light
and not as someone I'd like to do business with.

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socalnate1
It's hard to believe a cloud storage company was really as ignorant of Python
as they claim.

Let's hope they drop the claim, and we can all move on with our lives.

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sixtypoundhound
I'm sorry, the CEO's position is ludicrous.

Which business leader, in this day and age, hasn't tried to google their own
company's brand name to see what comes up?

Oh...what are these pages upon pages of stuff about Python (programming
language) which shows up when I type Python, Python Hosting, or Python UK...

Nope..never heard of Python (PSF), nope...not me...nope...

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majc2
Find it interesting that Veber are portrayed as the victim, in this piece from
the Register here:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/19/python_versus_veber_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/19/python_versus_veber_trademark/)

Would expect better reporting and questioning from El Reg.

~~~
huxley
Wow ... I knew the English language was capable of such a construction but I
never thought I'd read "expect better reporting and questioning from El
Reg"[The Register]

The Register (and The Inquirer after it) ported the classic British tabloid
format to tech reporting, all I'd expect from El Reg is sarcasm, climate
change denial and exclamation marks.

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whatusername
I wonder if part of their problem is that they will get sued for poBOX cloud
software and Storage -- since there's already another player with a very
similar name in the exact same market. ( <http://box.com/> )

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meaty
A fine example of backpedalling and talking shit.

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smoyer
Standard double-speak ... if you can't get away with something, you hope to
get out of it without problems. I won't defend those who are implementing the
DDOS, but I do hope it's a warning to others who have the opportunity to "play
nice". I believe that OSS and corporations can coexist (sorry RMS).

~~~
chimeracoder
> I believe that OSS and corporations can coexist (sorry RMS).

RMS doesn't disagree with corporations (the FSF is a corporation) or even with
commercial use of software (the freedom to use software for commercial
purposes is explicitly included as a fundamental freedom of software).

