Cancelation #92050564 was filed yesterday and has just now appeared in the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) latest status info for #75215401:
Current Status: A cancellation proceeding has been filed at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and is now pending.Sure enough in the Petition to Cancel (which we've uploaded to Scribd for your convenience) they've gone for Abandonment, Genericness and, wait for it, FRAUD!
On November 17, 2006, Registrant filed with the U.S. Trademark Office Combined Declaration of Use and Incontestability under Section 8 & 15 which included a sworn declaration signed under penalty of perjury by Mr: Herb Tuner, Senior Product Management for Registrant.
10. Mr. Tuner swore that Registrant was, as of November 17, 2006, using the Netbook
trademark commerce on or in connection with all goods listed in the above-identified registration," and that Registrant "has used the above-identified trademark in commerce for five years after of registration povember 21, 2000J." Upon information and belief, such statements were false at the they were made.
11. In support of its 2006 Combined of Continued Use and Incontestability, of use consisting of an advertisement Netbook laptop sale of which, by Registrant three (3) years.Here's the abandonment points:
5. Psion claims that it began offering laptop computers under the mark Netbook in approximatelyAnd the genericness points:
6. Upon information and belief, Psion is not currently offering laptop computers under the
Netbook trademark.
7. Upon information and belief, Psion intends not to resume bona fide use of the Netbook
name in the of trade.
8. Psion has abandoned the "Netbook" mark.
18. The term "netbook" has been widely used by computer the media, and consumers to refer to a subset of "notebook" computers are small inexpensive.Talk about an epic fail for Psion's scare campaign - there is little chance that this petition will not be upheld, although there may need to be similar filings in each of the other international jurisdictions as it's been over 5 years (which could get quite messy over in the EU where they have a community mark spanning all the countries).
19. Many make netbooks, Asus, Sony, Sylvania, Samsung, MS LG, and Fujitsu, among
Update: For the record, the offending false statement (page1 and page2) and the ad for the discontinued product (page1 and page2) are also available. You can view the file itself including the petition and the notice and trial dates:
Time to Answer 3/30/2009
Deadline for Discovery Conference 4/29/2009
Discovery Opens 4/29/2009
Initial Disclosures Due 5/29/2009
Expert Disclosures Due 9/26/2009
Discovery Closes 10/26/2009
Plaintiff's Pretrial Disclosures 12/10/2009
Plaintiff's 30-day Trial Period Ends 1/24/2010
Defendant's Pretrial Disclosures 2/8/2010
Defendant's 30-day Trial Period Ends 3/25/2010
Plaintiff's Rebuttal Disclosures 4/9/2010
Plaintiff's 15-day Rebuttal Period Ends 5/9/2010
5 comments:
Sweet. Now if a few more netbook makers, HP, Asus, Acer, MSI, would stand up, this thing would topple like the house of cards it is.
The best thing the others can do right now is continue on business as usual, which is to say, use the marks relentlessly. The only casualty we're aware of so far is Acer who have pulled their "netbook" landing page.
Asus - the Best Netbook!!!
This is piracy. Intel should have sought cancellation before using Psion’s legitimate trademark name, if they really believed that netbook was dropped by Psion. I believe the courts will be looking for proper procedures rather than wishful thinking. Therefore, Intel will eventually be forced to pay hefty fines to Psion.
You may well be right you know but that's not what this campaign is all about - whether Intel gets punished or not is not our concern. Perhaps they should... but there's compelling evidence that Psion had abandoned the term before it became generic as a result of Intel's marketing.
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