Commodore trademark has a new daddy

[cgutjahr]

[...] granting us EXCLUSIVE WORLDWIDE rights to [...] the BOING Ball

I'm not a native English speaker, so could you please clarify if you claim to have an exclusive license to use the Boingball image? That would directly contradict AInc's settlement with Hyperion, that's why I'm asking.

These registered trademarked logos include the BOING Ball, TIC/Check mark, letter A and the word AMIGA logos.

AFAIK, neither the check mark nor the letter A are registered trademarks in the US or Europe - I was actively searching for registered Amiga related trademarks a while ago. Could you give us some serial no. or anything like that so we can check the registration in the USPTO database?

If they're not registered, any claims of ownership are on somewhat shacky ground IMHO. The italic "A" (I doubt you can actually protect that at all) hasn't been used commercially for fifteen years, the last commercial use of the checkmark was a decade ago (and if I don't tell you where it has been used, you'd never find out).

[cgutjahr]

Please read my interpretation and tell me if I'm wrong.

I take it you're referring to the fact that the Boingball image is not registered anymore either. That's correct, but for the sake of simplicity (reregistering or even defending it without having it registered should be very easy, as it's still in commercial use) I decided to not mention that. Barry already has enough questions to answer.

[cgutjahr]

The statement is actually very specific.
In their settlement with Hyperion Entertainment, Amiga granted the opposing party the right to use the Boing Ball logo in conjuction with a particular software product.

Section 1, paragraph (c) of the Ainc/Hyperion settlement says:

Solely for the purpose of marketing, distributing and making available AmigaOS 4 and any hardware required or desired to operate with AmigaOS 4, the Amiga parties grant Hyperion [...] a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free, transferable right and license to use the "Boing Ball" logo mark.

In fact, an embossed Boing Ball on the front door and "Boing Ball keys" are the main selling points for the X1000 case and keyboard.

If Barry claims to have an exclusive license, something doesn't add up here.

I am afraid your opinion on this legal matter is a bit on shaky ground :-)

Then enlighten me, please I don't know how difficult or easy it is to defend a mark that was never registered and hasn't been in commercial use for more than a decade. If you have any pointers regarding that, I'd be interested.

[cgutjahr]

URL if you have one handy.

There is no URL, as the checkmark never was a registered trademark. But it's still a trademark  that you can defend, provided you actually use it in your products.

Here's a challenge for you, dammy: What was the last time, the checkmark was used in a product? (everybody: It's a challenge for dammy, please let him answer this one).

[cgutjahr]

Common Law still applies, just makes it tougher to defend is all.

That's a non-answer, dammy. Here's some food for thought:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademarks#Maintaining_rights

Note the terms "five years" and "abandonment". I'm with Kolla here: "Good luck defending that one" - unless, of course, the trademark was registered and I simply missed it. Still waiting for an answer from Barry on that one. He should know.

And you seemed to have missed the second part of my posting, so let me repeat it here:

Here's a challenge for you, dammy: What was the last time the checkmark was used in a product?

[cgutjahr]

Yes it is a answer.  You may not like it, but that is your problem.

http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426712

We all know that one can defend non-registered trademarks, I already acknowledged that three days ago.

But to be defendable, it has to be in active use - that's why I pointed you to the Wikipedia article, which says "five years". I'm all interested in more precise documentation, but your above link is useless in this context.

No, I didn't miss it. I just don't care.

If you don't care, why do you make claims about AInc/CUSA being able to defend it? To determine if they are able to defend it, you need to know the mark's last use in commerce.

So, once again: If it's not registered and you don't know when it was last used commercially, on what grounds do you claim that anybody owns enforcable rights regarding this mark?

[cgutjahr]

So why are you stuck on this subject then?

Because I actually care about the topic? You're the one who doesn't ("I don't care").

That would be up to C=USA and it's legal department to deal with and I'm pretty confident C=USA won't give an inch with out a court battle.

You mean the same "legal department" who told Barry that the checkmark and the letter "A" are registered trademarks? I'd love to see this "legal department" perform in a "court battle".

[cgutjahr]

In fact, CUSA wouldn't get half the attention it does here

CUSA actually needs to grab as much attention as it can, because that's the only thing it's got going for itself. Their first Amiga related announcements are 1.5 years old, and there's still no sign of product, no concept designs, no roadmap, no defined target audience - nothing.

So far, all they have is a trademark and the attention it creates. Hence there's announcement after announcement, 'offers' to the community, slight stabs at the competition that are guaranteed to provoke arguments ("Workbench 5"?) and attempts to create a bit of a hype ("photos of our factory", "cooperation with disney").

The worst thing that can happen to them is that their 15 minutes of fame are over before they have a product. Hence they need to make as much noise as possible. Yes, the 'haters' love to bash them, endlessly. But why don't you ask CUSA to shut up until they can deliver?

I am well aware of CUSA's past transgressions and mistakes. The previous actions of CUSA don't justify the continuing crap that is posted here EVERYDAY!  Grow up!

Why "past" mistakes? In this very thread, Barry makes outrageous (i.e. mostly bogus) claims about what trademark he owns and tells us that he is now "entitled to enforce the Amiga trademark IP". That's the kind of stuff that generates heated debate - which is exactly why digitex posted it here. And he's doing that after telling us for a year that we're not his target audience anyway.

That's happening right now, why are you talking about "previous actions"?

[cgutjahr]

:bump:

Is there any particular reason to bump this flame fest?

Your job as a site owner is to keep the site peaceful - that's what amiga.org used to be about. Stop trolling please.