"Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany • Hacker News Board

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#31

Post by unreal37 » Fri, May 03, 2013, 4:11 PM UTC

dj-wonk wrote: post #30

Udo wrote: post #24

It's a shame this hasn't been posted anywhere before the deadline for Opposition Proceedings had been reached (March 7th 2013). Whether it would have been possible to stop this at all is another matter, of course.

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.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#32

Post by protomyth » Fri, May 03, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

scoot wrote: post #26

protomyth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you couldn't trademark the word "Apple" in the food category since it is the term for a group of fruits. It is valid in other categories.

Which means it should at most be blocked for categories in which a trademark is held, not for ads in other categories, or use as a generic word - if at all.

Not sure about German law or how much research they do into words before they allow the trademark. It does seem a bit of due diligence was missed.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#33

Post by unreal37 » Fri, May 03, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

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.

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.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#34

Post by EGreg » Fri, May 03, 2013, 4:18 PM UTC

jcampbell1 wrote: post #6

Germans apparently allow all sorts of English words to be trademarked. I ran into the problem buying Google ads, and the ads would get rejected for a trademark violation. The whole campaign would get messed up because I targeted english speakers worldwide and the ads got rejected because the word "immersion" is trademarked in Germany. Edit: I think Google has since improved the error message and gives a message like…

Does that mean I can block companies from using any word I like, by trademarking it in Germany, since they seem to let you trademark any words?

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#35

Post by rubinelli » Fri, May 03, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

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".

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#36

Post by mkoble11 » Fri, May 03, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

This just shows that "hackathon" is becoming more popularized.

Today, everything is a "hackathon" which is rather annoying, IMO. In the past year or so, we've seen legal hackathons [1], marketing hackathons [2] and more.

Now, more and more corporations are starting to get into the hackathon game - eg. Campbell's disaster a few months back [3].

With popularity comes consequence, but perhaps the "spirit" of a hackathon is what matters: getting people to GTFO of their element, come together and create something in a short period of time.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/legal-hackathon-law...

[2] http://atdc.org/2012/07/atlanta-hosts-worlds-first-marketing...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086013

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#37

Post by Roritharr » Fri, May 03, 2013, 5:23 PM UTC

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.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#38

Post by wazoox » Fri, May 03, 2013, 5:25 PM UTC

In the late 90's some guy trademarked "Halloween" in France, because "Halloween" wasn't in any French dictionary back then. He made an incredible fortune by going after all of those (starting with McDonald's and Disney) making Halloween-based advertising.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#39

Post by Roritharr » Fri, May 03, 2013, 5:29 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #33

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.

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.

Re: "Hackathon" Has Been Trademarked in Germany

#40

Post by thomasbachem » Fri, May 03, 2013, 5:53 PM UTC

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 it's better that it's a trademark of a non-commercial project, than of some cease-and-desist law firm."

I totally disagree with that whole idea though. Makes us Germans look ridiculous :-).