Defending Our Brand • Hacker News Board

Re: Defending Our Brand

#81

Post by puddintane » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #56

schlowmo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They always provided free "personal" certifcates with a validity of one year. But they market the "Start Encrypt" thing like you now get wildcard and EV certificates for free (which isn't true). Talking about scummy practices...

When hasn't StartCom been scummy?

Never I'm pretty sure - we run a ticket reselling website thru an exchange and tried to use the service to get developer certs for our testing site.

The web site had a black banner with white text on the top that stated in high contrast that it was the developer site and no actual transactions would run and tickets could not be purchased if a transaction was attempted here. (even was using a test domain while clearly the live site's domain was in the header)

They still required us to purchase some package to use the certificates on that site. When LE came up we were more then thrilled that we didn't have to fork out extra cash for developing on sites that don't get traffic at all and clearly stated this fact.

I will never go back to StartCom considering how they treated us that day.

It seems more like to that the approval process is strictly to whomever is approving requests at the time because I've also seen several friends get certificates for e-commerce sites that were clearly labeled as the production server and have yet to be revoked after several years of running and becoming successful.

I don't know how StartCom run's the actual process and I could have just been caught on a bad person that day but honestly when you have one bad experience humans tend to avoid going through that again since we are programmed since birth to do this. Of course Let's Encrypt has been more then what we expected and will continue to use them until such time we are required to stop using them!

Go Let's Encrypt - You got this companies support and I'm sure that of many others so don't ever stop fighting!

Re: Defending Our Brand

#82

Post by mhw » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:29 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #58

I'm pretty sure the lawyer would have known about letsencrypt.org and their Let's Encrypt project before filing this. So that being said, reading the fine print of what the lawyer had to sign in order to submit the application, shouldn't the lawyer be vulnerable to perjury charges? Excerpt from http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn86790719&docId... : The signatory believes that: if the applicant is filing th…

I'm also puzzled that Let's Encrypt's Trademark policy [1] strongly suggests that 'Let's Encrypt' is a trademark (word mark?) that they have registered, and yet according to the most recent letter sent by the USPTO [2] "The Office records have been searched and there are no similar registered or pending marks that would bar registration [...]"

[1] https://letsencrypt.org/trademarks/ [2] http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn86790719&docId...

Re: Defending Our Brand

#83

Post by andrewflnr » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:29 PM UTC

tomcorrigan wrote: post #73

I would love to see Mozilla (a big backer of Let's Encrypt) drop the Comodo root certs from their alpha and beta Firefox builds for a couple of days to show them how ugly things get when both sides play nasty.

Given a year's warning or so, I would love to see all the browser vendors just drop Comodo permanently.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#84

Post by dordoka » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

Well, there you have it Comodo. Issued new certificates for my humble domains even thought they're not yet expired. And there you have it Let's Encrypt, I've donated https://letsencrypt.org/donate/

Re: Defending Our Brand

#85

Post by Inlinked » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

yeldarb wrote: post #62

Why did Lets Encrypt not previously register a trademark of their own?

"How to not defend your brand".

This blog reads like sour grapes, and to me, is on the edge of riling up a community to damage a competitor.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#86

Post by Nilzzon » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

That's it, I've cancelled all our Comodo certificates!

Re: Defending Our Brand

#87

Post by jordigh » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #79

jordigh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Encrypt" on its own is generic but the " Encrypt" form of it doesn't sound generic enough to me. Trademarks don't have to be original to be trademarkable, just not cause confusion. I can see people getting confused by "start encrypt" vs "let's encrypt". There could be a case for trademark confusion there. > Nevertheless, you can't trademark " Pizza" Yep, you totally can. Again, because originality has got nothing to…

Absolutely correct that you can trademark those phrases. I thought one thing and typed completely another. My mistake. What I meant is that you can't use your trademark on " Pizza" to exclude anyone else from registering " Pizza" and competing with you [edit: under that mark].

Depends on the adjective. If "Hot Pizza" is granted (it seems to just be an application), which I doubt because that does sound really generic, then probably nobody will be granted "Warm Pizza" or "Sizzling Pizza" because that sounds similar enough to cause confusion.

Likelihood of confusion is the acid test for trademark infringement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement

Also, preventing others from competing with you is completely irrelevant to trademarks. That's more something like what patents do. As far as trademarks go, you can compete all you want, just make sure you don't portray yourself as having the same name as your competitor.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#88

Post by Nilzzon » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:34 PM UTC

That's it! I've just replaced all our Comodo certificates.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#89

Post by pcora » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

schlowmo wrote: post #45

pcora wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the naming might be similar, they are actually providing a free ssl cert, right? similar to LE. If that is the case, then its a good thing (IMHO)

They always provided free "personal" certifcates with a validity of one year. But they market the "Start Encrypt" thing like you now get wildcard and EV certificates for free (which isn't true). Talking about scummy practices...

wow, thanks for clarifying! :)

Re: Defending Our Brand

#90

Post by dandelion_lover » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #29

l1n wrote: post #2

Talk about an abuse of the trademark system.

Hm? This seems to be the perfect use of this "intellectual property"[1]. Comodo is trying to deceive people, Let's Encrypt is trying to prevent it by enforcing their trademarks. This is how it's supposed to work. -- [1] I don't like the term "intellectual property" mostly because people forget or misunderstand what it refers to and how the many various things called "intellectual property" work individually and diffe…

>I don't like the term "intellectual property"

and rightfully so, see https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/the-term