Comments on: Pasadena family enforces its trademark of the term "Urban Homestead"

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

another excellent article about all of this:

http://www.farmcurious.com/trademarks-patents-thieves-oh-my/

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Effective immediately, I am going to trademark the dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia and the entire English language. Anyone who wishes to read, write or speak in English will now need to get my express permission in writing, after reading this and speaking to me … oops, how are they going to do that? Hmm…

By: Nom_de_Guerre

Nom_de_Guerre — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been following their blog for years now and I can’t say how extremely disapointing I find this attitude.

I’m pretty sure this is all because some people were re-blogging a lot of articles and images without due credit but this overkill posture is just going to scare off a lot of people.

By: pahool

pahool — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

They issued a press release that basically says bloggers suck:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20110218/pl_usnw/DC50891

They state: “No threat was made against anyone’s first amendment rights” yet they fail to address the facebook group takedowns, or this DMCA takedown that they apparently sent to Google:

http://chillingeffects.org/N/58166#DumpTheDervaeses

in which they seem to be targeting the amazon search results for the Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen book “Urban Homesteading.”

I can’t speak to the authenticity of the takedown notice on chilling effects, but the Dervaeses certainly should.

By: manicbassman

manicbassman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

it’s about as daft as Microsoft trademarking “Windows”…

they settled the last case they brought as they were going to lose and lose the trademark…

By: Bronxophile

Bronxophile — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think these folks I used to work with may be interested in this,,,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHAB

What would they know, only been around since the 70′s

By: Urban Homestead

Urban Homestead — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What the…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kind of related- Hon’s Wun Tun in Vancouver seems to have trademarked ‘potsticker’. These have been around for at least a thousand years, and many restaurants still refer to them as potsickers. Anyone care to explain this one to me?

http://www.hons.ca/hons_english.htm

http://chinesefood.about.com/od/potstickers/p/potstickers.htm

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m coming into this debate late as usual but it seems to me that their claim on these phrases is a bit like Sarah Palin claiming trademark rights on the phrase ‘Tea Party’. Like the Dervaes she has some claim to be a ‘figurehead’ in a movement. Like them she has gone someway to popularising a term. In her case its ‘Tea Party’. Like ‘Urban Homesteading’ the phrase has also been in common use before the ‘Tea Party’ actually claimed ‘Tea Party’ as a way to describe themselves. Now, I know she hasn’t actually claimed trademark rights on this. She wouldn’t because the movement she claims to be spearheading would no doubt get pretty irate. Furthermore by limiting the spread of the ‘Tea Party’ phrase she would be handicapping the spread of the movement she purports to be a leader in….
Reading this back it makes no sense…anyway. What I’m trying to say is – why are the Urban Homesteaders taking this lying down?

By: EMJ

EMJ — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If registered trademarks are so important why don’t they put the (R) next to all mentions of urban homestead etc on their own website.?

By: tcv

tcv — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Their website is down.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oh FFS (R)

By: Church

Church — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

USPissmeThefuckOf.

By: tcv

tcv — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nevermind. Maybe it was under a mini ddos. I couldn’t get to it for a few minutes.

By: jetsetsc

jetsetsc — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is exactly the response that Baltimoreans have had to the local Cafe Hon trademarking their “Hon” logo. No amount of money could possibly buy that much bad publicity.
http://citypaper.com/news/ms-hon-derstood-1.1098508

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Also, the Twitter discussion is using the hashtag #dumpthedervaeses.

By: tcv

tcv — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what I don’t understand: It’s pretty clear that they are well-loved and widely respected. People would visit the farm, buy their products, etc.

Why the sudden need to “protect” their “interests?”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Urbane homesteading?

By: Stooge

Stooge — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dervaes's trademark is in SUPPLEMENTAL REGISTER. It means that they almost have no rights. Obviously they have no rights for any exclusivity on this common phrases. The problem is with Facebook that terminates accounts immediatly on violation of trademark rights. Facebook doesn't investigate and search complicated Trademark Law.

Completely wrong. The trademark for Urban Homestead is on the principal register, Dervaes does have exclusive rights, and Facebook didn't have much choice in the matter.

By: wobinidan

wobinidan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I really wanted to recommend this company to some friends of mine, but seeing as their name was trademarked, I had to refer to them as F*cking J*rks in all the emails I sent. I think that sums up their position more aptly than the name that must not be mentioned.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nitty gritty was not ‘invented’ by the Dirt Band and I suspect you may not be familiar with its true origin.

By: Mike K

Mike K — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Make sure that you’re also mentioning that the Dervaes family Twitterfeed says that the letters are not from them. I’d hate for BoingBoing to target someone only to have it be false.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Harvesting Greed Since 2008â„¢

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

To Stooge Dervaes family supporter: do your search on TESS for “urban homesteading” – it is in SUPPLEMENTARY REGISTER:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4005:5vpqdv.2.3

By: sirdook

sirdook — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Given that ‘liberty garden’ is a term that dates back to WWI, I also find it hard to believe that they were able tm the synonymous (and equally generic) ‘freedom garden.’

I guess we should tell them that ‘freedom isn’t free’ doesn’t refer to paying off tm-trolls.

By: Seonaid

Seonaid — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#67 OK. So “Urban Homestead” is on the Principal Register

“Urban Homesteading” is in supplemental register.

By: jjsaul

jjsaul — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

How could the term possibly be considered non-descriptive for trademark purposes? It has been used since the 1880s:

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=urban+homestead&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

By: tcv

tcv — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The quibble is they didn’t send out a “cease & desist” letter. That’s right. They didn’t. You can’t find the phrase in the letter. So, perhaps people are misrepresenting what the letter says technically, but there is a lot of language about protecting their business interests and they clearly feel that they’ve done more for urban homestead than anyone else. So, they suggest other phrases if you want to talk about homesteading generally or, if you want to refer to their products, how to use their trademarks properly. So, while it doesn’t say “you will cease and desist” it sure implies it.

By: Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The letter I linked to is on the Dervaes’ website.

By: Seonaid

Seonaid — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It doesn’t matter how nice they are, and it doesn’t matter what their intent is. They are not the only ones who have built up this goodwill. They are prominent in the field, but the quasi-mainstream acceptance of this is a result of the work of thousands of people and organizations over the last 30 years, whom they are now attempting to exclude from the use of these (relatively common) words. This includes people who had already published books and articles under the name “Urban Homesteading” before the trademark was registered.

And even though they claim it is not a cease-and-desist letter, it contains the following:
“If your use of one of these phrases is not to specifically identify products or services from the Dervaes Institute, then it would be proper to use generic terms to replace the registered trademark you are using. For example, when discussing general homesteading or other peopleâ€™s projects, they should be referred to using terms such as â€˜modern homesteading,â€™ â€˜urban sustainability projects,â€™ or similar descriptions.”

It is polite, but it is very clear: they expect us to cede all use of the words urban homesteading to them and invent a new generic phrase.

In this case, what should we do? Come up with new phrases and use them until somebody figures out the “first-to-file” gambit to claim them too? No. We’re going to keep using that phrase, and we’re going to support other people’s right to use it, because a) it is “merely descriptive” and b) the supplemental register doesn’t allow them to issue this sort of letter or take such heavy-handed tactics as deleting other people’s hard-built Facebook pages.

I wrote a much longer article on it over here in case you would like to see my reasoned argument rather than a (slightly ranty) comment version: How to Build a 1500 Follower Facebook Page in 24 Hours