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From the L.A. Weekly Blog, about a family in Pasadena who operate a farm on their fifth of an acre:
Perceived cred doesn't automatically give you the political capital to trademark popular phrases associated with what you do for a living, but that isn't stopping the Dervaes family of Pasadena.
This past week, the Dervaes Institute, the parent organization run by the Dervaes family, started sending out "normal, professional and informative" letters to anyone using the following trademarked terms: URBAN HOMESTEAD®, URBAN HOMESTEADING®, PATH TO FREEDOM®, GROW THE FUTURE®, HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION®, FREEDOM GARDENS®, LITTLE HOMESTEAD IN THE CITY® (the last one is pending, but it's included on the original letter.). They also asked Facebook to take down pages that violated their trademark, which Facebook has done.
A Google search of "urban homestead" yielded 343,000 items; only the first two are Dervaes-associated links. One wonders which tasks they'll prefer: mucking out the goat pen and harvesting snow peas or endlessly defending the trademarks that have been part of the common language of the local food movement for years to come.
I seriously question the competence of the legal advice they received in trying to copyright phrases we've all heard about the urban sustainability movement and which have been in common usage for years. Mother Earth News, for instance, has been using some of these phrases since the Seventies, and at least one book has already been published with one of the same phrases.
Should they be able to trademark and pursue "cease and desist" against all who use these phrases in their writing, which may have nothing to do with the Pasadena operation? (People in the Green Movement are outraged -- just read some of the comments.)
Should they be able to trademark and pursue "cease and desist" against all who use these phrases in their writing, which may have nothing to do with the Pasadena operation? (People in the Green Movement are outraged -- just read some of the comments.)
You're confusing copyright with trademarks. They are two completely different things.
For example an airline could claim to be an American airline but they would have to be careful the literature wasn't too confusing and it didn't imply they were The American Airlines.
Edit: Just to clarify It's all about the context. I'm not a lawyer so this is just my opinion. If you used the terms "Urban Homesteading" in the title of group or organization you would run afoul of their trademark. Using this term in the title of an article *might* get you in trouble but using it as I have used it here would not. They can ***** all they want and send letters, most will cave but IMO if it's common they have no grounds to stop you from using it as simple term. Matter of fact you could discuss the company Urban Homesteading that has trademarked the name Urban Homesteading, there's no implication I have anything to do with this company so it's not an issue.
Last edited by thecoalman; 02-20-2011 at 07:12 PM..
If I say, "There's an app for that." will I be in trouble?
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