
Arduino Announces New Brand, Genuino, Manufacturing Partnership with Adafruit - zaaaaz
http://makezine.com/2015/05/16/arduino-adafruit-manufacturing-genuino/
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Animats
This is why you want to get your trademarks and domains set up early.

    
    
        arduino.cc - the original
        arduinosrl.it - the rogue manufacturer. Uses same logo.
        arduino.net - Poser porn
        arduino.com - T-shirt store
    

The US trademark is owned by "ARDUINO, LLC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
MASSACHUSETTS", whoever they are.

~~~
arbuge
In all fairness, the Arduino name is itself originally take from the name of a
bar in Italy where the project founders used to hang out. Think about how that
bar owner would feel about this...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#History)

~~~
rando289
Trademarks are limited to the area of product they apply to. The purpose of
trademarks is "identify and distinguish the goods/services of one seller or
provider from those of others, and to indicate the source of the
goods/services." No one is going to be surprised that those 2 arduinos aren't
the same entity, or walk into the bar and wonder why little computers aren't
on the menu, so trademark law completely ignores this, and it's extremely
common so the bar owner shouldn't feel bad at all.

You can change your name to Barak Obama, and you'll get internet commenters
saying things that start with "in all fairness...", but the white house won't
be returning your calls.

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AceJohnny2
I still don't understand what kind of standing the Arduino brand stealers
(formerly Smart Projects, first manufacturers of Arduino) have to take over
the brand worldwide.

~~~
StavrosK
You mean that the factory that was building the Arduinos just took over the
brand?

~~~
gr33nman
From the article: "Much of 2015 has seen the open-source board maker defending
itself from its former manufacturing partner, which recently claimed ownership
of the brand, launched its own Arduino product line and website, and has
worked to bar distributors from buying Arduino products from other
manufacturers."

~~~
StavrosK
Yes, I saw that, but does "manufacturing partner" mean "factory"?

~~~
egwynn
Pretty much, yes.

From
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#Legal_dispute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino#Legal_dispute)

    
    
      At the end of 2008, Gianluca Martino's company, Smart Projects,
      registered the Arduino trademark in Italy and kept this a secret from the
      other co-founders for about two years. This was revealed when the
      Arduino company tried to register the trademark in other areas of the
      world (they originally registered only in the US), and discovered that it
      was already registered in Italy. Negotiations with Gianluca and his
      company to bring the trademark under control of the original Arduino
      company were not successful, and in 2014 Smart Projects began refusing to
      pay royalties. Smart Projects appointed a new CEO, Mr. Musto, who
      renamed the company to Arduino SRL and created a website named
      arduino.org, copying the graphics and layout of the original Arduino.cc.
      This resulted in a rift in the Arduino development team, and although all
      Arduino boards are still available to consumers, and the designs are
      open source, the implications of this are uncertain.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh wow, that's super dodgy.

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drewm1980
I think they should have just chosen some new unique name. "Genuino" is just
baking the memory of this schism into their new brand, and comes off as a
blatant legal manoeuvre rather than taking the high road and starting over
with branding.

~~~
reedlaw
Isn't Genuino unique enough? And it's a clever play on the original name
(genuine with an -uino suffix like the original).

~~~
provemewrong
It's not clever at all. Genuino sounds like a cheap knock off, like countless
other *duinos:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arduino_boards_and_comp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arduino_boards_and_compatible_systems#Arduino-
compatible_boards)

arduino.cc has stated that they're not fans of spawn-offs with that suffix:

>Note that while we don't attempt to restrict uses of the "duino" suffix, its
use causes the Italians on the team to cringe (apparently it sounds terrible);
you might want to avoid it. (It's also trademarked by a Hungarian company.)

Source: [http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ](http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ)

~~~
zenojevski
"Genuino" is the actual Italian word for "genuine".

To Italians it sounds very good, and evokes images of a "handcrafted" brand.

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ricardobeat
An article from March that explains the split in a bit more detail:
[http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part-
ii/](http://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part-ii/)

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aceperry
Excellent move. Reclaiming the Arduino (soon to be Genuino) movement and also
bringing manufacturing to the US. Adafruit has been a great part of the maker
movement here, glad to see them participating in this next phase of the
Arduino.

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CodeWriter23
Well played, Genuino.

