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"Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

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Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#41

Post by dj-wonk »

unreal37 wrote: post #31
dj-wonk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this...? A simple tool might be useful as a first line of defense against silly filings. First, the tool could monitor trademark filings. Second, it could compare against common words, perhaps from a dictionary. Third, it could score filings using a 'frivolity' score. Fourth, perhaps it could expose its a moderation queue via a mailing list or web interface. Fifth, maybe it could be gamified?

Hackathon doesn't appear in any dictionary. Maybe you should use Google Search result count. If a phrase doesn't appear frequently online, its ok to trademark. If there are 10 million results, it should be flagged.

Wiktionary has a very inclusive list of definitions. It does include hackathon: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hackathon

For such a tool to be most useful, I'd recommend gathering data from several places (such as DuckDuckGo, Wiktionary, Wikipedia). Also, it would be better not to be tied to fixed thresholds (such as 10 million results); rather, it would likely be better to construct a feature vector and try out various machine learning approaches.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#42

Post by thomasbachem »

thomasbachem wrote: post #40

Their official blog post and explanation: http://www.young-targets.com/formation-of-tech_hub-started/ There's a pretty big discussion/shitstorm going on in the Berlin Startups Facebook group. The trademark owners claim that they want to use the licensing fees to support non-commercial events, quotation: "I think it's worth trying. If not, there sure will be other ways to finance non-commercial projects. I any cases i…

They removed the image. Screenshot: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/279887/pm/03-05-2013%201...

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#43

Post by NicoleSimon »

thomasbachem wrote: post #40

Their official blog post and explanation: http://www.young-targets.com/formation-of-tech_hub-started/ There's a pretty big discussion/shitstorm going on in the Berlin Startups Facebook group. The trademark owners claim that they want to use the licensing fees to support non-commercial events, quotation: "I think it's worth trying. If not, there sure will be other ways to finance non-commercial projects. I any cases i…

The discussion can be found here https://www.facebook.com/groups/159595270791268/permalink/44...

with the guy in charge. (You need to join the group to see the discussion)

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#44

Post by NicoleSimon »

Roritharr wrote: post #37
Roritharr wrote: post #8

I've organized a few hackathons in Germany and am pretty disgusted by finding this. I've already contacted a few fellow organizers to find out what we can do about this.

I've just heard through the grapevine that this was created as a protective trademark, to prevent the exact thing we're afraid was going to happen. An official statement from the CEO of the company will follow soon.

And the earth is flat.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#45

Post by NicoleSimon »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #4

Why? The trademark has been filed in Germany by a German events directory. Their main focus appears to be club events, not nerd events and indeed there is only one listing from mid last year for a hackathon. Are they getting into the trademark troll business on the side?

That is the entity filing, probably easier.

Here is the claimed background for this http://www.young-targets.com/formation-of-tech_hub-started/

with implying that most of the people are on board with this - most of the organizer used in that image however where only asked if they liked the idea of the techhub nothing more. The good thing about the connected world is that those kinds of statements can be easily verified.

The discussion is happening with the guy here https://www.facebook.com/groups/159595270791268/permalink/44...

if you don't like to join, you can see statements of organizers also here https://www.facebook.com/nicole.simon/posts/1015164077361130...

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#46

Post by _ak »

eno2001 wrote: post #9

Germans brothers called 'Samwer' copycat any existing successful website like ebay, amazon etc. Now they probably will trademark any single existing word. So typically german, just like chinese...

The German tech- and startup-scene hates the Samwer brothers as much as the rest of the world because they gave German startups a bad name.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#47

Post by moontear »

rubinelli wrote: post #35
troymc wrote: post #23

I went to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) site and searched for the word "hackathon" in their (US) trademark database and it didn't find anything, so US-based hackathons should be fine (for now). In Germany, I'm sure the Germans can come up with some long-German-word-like-'marathon-of-hacking'-that-means-the-same-thing-as-hackathon, if they haven't already.

Hopefully, they will get the trademark preemptively this time. I vote for "Codefest".

Codefest it is. Like the sound of it.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#48

Post by [deleted] »

Roritharr wrote: post #39
unreal37 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't a trademark have the same rules of a patent, i.e. "prior art"? Don't do anything. Let the company try and stop you.

In Germany they could stop me with a cease and desist i'd be court ordered to stop organizing an event until i can prove his claim wrong. But as i've mentioned in my other post, this won't happen, it seems the good guys trademarked it.

[deleted]
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