Save the Netbooks writes "We discussed Psion sending C&Ds late last year over international trademarks held on the term 'netbook' and Dell accusing Psion of fraud last week. Since then Intel has joined in by suing Psion in federal court. On Friday Psion counter-sued Intel (court filing, PDF). SaveTheNetbooks.com has an analysis here. Psion has demanded a jury trial, profits, treble damages, destruction of material bearing the mark 'netbook' and the netbook.com domain (among other things), claiming that they are still actively selling netbooks despite also revealing sales figures showing a minuscule market share. It seems that declaring victory may have been a little premature as it will be months before the dispute plays out in court."
Psion actually did have high-quality handhelds back before they became so commonplace. Unlike a lot of their competitors, they actually included a compiler right on their devices so you could program or modify existing programs. Of course, this is back in the '90s, before even the Newton...
I actually think Psion might have a case here. They registered the "netBook" trademark years ago, and have been selling "netBook" branded subnotebooks continually over the last decade.
At this point, I think "Netbook" has become generic, but not through a failure of Psion to protect its trademark. Intel, while not selling a device of its own, improperly appropriated Psion's trademark for its own commercial ends (selling Atom processors to subnotebook manufacturers among others). If Sun decided that "J2EE Server" wasn't going to win any adopters, and decided to call them "Websphere servers", that would be clearly be improper, even though they weren't using to refer specifically to their implementation.
I think this is an example of how a large corporation can away with almost anything they want.
Intel's use of "netbook" is just as wrong as if I started selling tissues called "kleenex". It's stealing someone else's name. But right & wrong doesn't matter. What matters is who has the deeper pockets, so Intel will ignore the cease-and-desist letters and just drag this in court until Psion goes bankrupt. It's a lot like what Microsoft did throughout the 90s.
But Intel didn't steal their name. They didn't start saying "netbook" to create confusion and trade on the excellent reputation of the famous Psion netbook. Rather they, or maybe some gadget blogger, noticed that this new class of machines is useful, despite their limited specs, thanks to their access to the network, and "netbook" is kind of catchy. They weren't trying to create an artificial association with the Psion Netbooks - which are kind of like the modern ones except even slower and with out the
If Psion had trademarked the name, and they were still using it (apparently they WERE still selling netbooks, even if only a few), then they probably have rights to the name. It doesn't matter than Intel is a much larger company. If Psion had a trademark on the name, and Intel did not check to see if the name was already trademarked, then they DID steal the name.
Whether Psion's product "caught on" in the market is irrelevant, as long as they were still selling them. You can't exactly let Intel void their trademark just because Intel is a bigger company! That's why we have trademarks in the first place.
Legally, you are probably right. But in judging Intel ethically, it matters to me whether they started saying "netbook" with the intention of stealing the name and trading on the reputation of Psions product. They clearly did not. The real clincher (in the court of my opinion) would be whether it was even Intel that started calling them that. This is not clear to me. Certainly I first became aware of "netbook" as a generic descriptor of the class of machines, with no particular tie to Intel.
No, this is slashdot. As I have tried to make clear, I am more interested in whether I personally think Intel are being evil bad guys here than in the details of the law involved. Call me arrogant if you like, but the law does not determine my opinion.
Which is why you would make a lousy judge. You'd probably demand I give-away my $300,000 savings to help my neighbor pay his mortgage because "in my opinion it's the ethical thing to do". Fortunately we run this country by law (a Republic) not your "personal feelings". My money is my property. Same with Psion:
Psion has property rights to the name "Netbook". Psion told Intel to stop using the name. Intel arrogantly ignored the letter and continued
>>>But Intel didn't steal their name.... and "netbook" is kind of catchy.
That's fine. They mistakenly used a trademarked name. No problem. HOWEVER now that they've been informed that the name is trademarked, via a cease-and-desist letter, they are obligated to stop. Since Intel is refusing to stop, they are in violation of the law, and can be sued for damages.
>>>Psion made a product that didn't catch on; that doesn't get them the right to keep the name for all eternity
They may have registered "netBook" years ago but the only "netBook" product they list is in their discontinued product page. One of the requirements for maintaining a trademark is to actively use it.
Their focus seems to be vehicle-mounted computers, appropriate for police and delivery vehicles, and their handheld units are appropriate for managing stores (inventory control) and delivery personnel, not the target market for netbooks.
They abandoned it, and let it fall into common use, becoming a genericized trademark. I would buy a "netbook" like an Aspire One or eee PC, but I would not buy a "NETBOOK PRO" from Psion even if it were to be brought back into production.
>>>One of the requirements for maintaining a trademark is to actively use it.
Bzzz. One of the requirements is to actively ENFORCE it, by protecting it from infringement. That is what Psion did when they sent out cease-and-desist to Intel. Intel is obligated to acknowledge the letter and comply with its demands, otherwise Intel is violating trademark law.
Intel could have easily said, "Ooops sorry," and that would have been the end. But instead it's clear Intel intends to steal somebody's else's
This is true. Intel and the other companies currently using the term netbook to define this class of devices could have said "Ooops sorry" and that would have been the end of it.
If Psion had made their move to protect the trademark back when the Intel first started encouraging the use of this term in the media then that surely is what would have happened. But psion, in their own statements, said they waited until the latter quarters of 2008 after it was clear to them that the use of the term netbook for
According to an earlier article, Intel claimed that Psion wasn't selling netbooks anymore. But if they actually still were -- even only a few -- then by law they would probably retain rights to the name. Market share has no bearing on whether you can keep a name or not... only whether you are actively using the name.
I have a Psion Netbook. It's a stunningly nice machine, with a really good keyboard (I mean, really good; it's got full sized keys and is extremely comfortable to type on), a decent touch-sensitive colour screen, PCMCIA, CF and a huge battery life with no moving parts.
Unfortunately by today's standards it's pretty antiquated. It runs EPOC, which may have been good then but is pretty useless today, and the 32MB of RAM isn't quite good enough to run anything else on (although you can hack Debian onto it, you
I also have a Psion Netbook and have been using mine every day for years. What it lacks in connectivity it makes up for in speed, battery life and applications that do what they should and carry no bloat. The Agenda is still the best calendar app I've used. For example, you can create an entry and then add a (Psion) Word document containing information about the entry, including images, etc.
It turns on instantly. That alone puts it above any of the subnotebooks that are currently calling themselves netb
I thought it originated (in its current incarnation, not the Psion one) in the tech press and tech community, not as a marketing term from Intel or Dell.
Also, are Asus not involved and if not, why not? They kicked this thing off.
I've seen several references in the press that it was Intel that re-invented the netbook term to go with the Atom marchitecture, other manufacturers and the press have just followed their lead.
I have to say I'm with Psion on this one, their competitors have released a near-identical product and used their brand name, of course they're pissed. Legally speaking the size of their market share has zero relevance.
Looks like netbooks may need a new name, for now... I recently did a whois search across all the prefixes and suffixes I could think of for small laptops (mobile-,mini-, -top, -book, etc.: net,com,org) All the.coms,.nets, and most.orgs were taken. Would one of you who has a short catchy one of these domains step forward to offer the name to the community?
Why do netbooks need a new name? It's a well-understood and generic term, just like biro or (in some countries) hoover. Let the lawyers deal with the lawyer-crap.
Because trademark cases can sometimes take *a long time* to resolve. If the effort to clear "netbook" fails in the end, Psion may be able to get major payments from anyone who made money from it before the case was resolved. That may include regular folks, like you and I, who may get Ad Sense income from blogging about "netbooks." IANAL, but, in my humble opinion, quickly working around the situation would make everyone's lives easier.
OTOH, If Psion just settled with the big guys and then released the na
Psion have essentially given an amnesty to bloggers and journalists using the term "netbook" (which may prove reason enough in itself to take the trademark off them since any licensing must include quality assurance). That includes blogs with advertising as explained here [jkontherun.com]:
"where a blogger uses context sensitive advertising that is completely outside of its control (so it has no knowledge at all whether a 'Netbook' related advert will be placed in its blog site), then we're taking the view that we need to fo
"Assuming around 15,000,000 netbooks were sold in 2008 at a conservative $200 per unit (and that our calculations are correct) Psion had a "netbook" market share of two thousandths of one percent in 2008 - rather low for a company claiming to hold a monopoly over the mark."
and absolutely irrelevant, especially as the sales in 2005 and 2006 show massive amounts of sales, and as they were the sole player in that market then, a 100% share. Within the past 5 years. And Intel's abuse of the trademark led to the Psion share of the netbook marking shrinking.
Actually no, the netBook rather than netBook Pro figures are relevant if only because it was on the basis of a netBook flyer that Psion renewed the trademark in 2006 (long after that particular product had been discontinued). This was the basis of Dell & Intel's claims of fraud, which could well undermine the trademark altogether (assuming abandonment and/or genericide don't).
I think the industry should all stop using the Netbook name, immediately. And then take out multiple advertisements to "clear up the confusion," pointing out how much better their fully-functional micro-laptops are.
Tag line: "Why buy a Netbook(TM) when you can have a Dell?" (with proper attribution for Netbook, naturally).
The fact that Psion themselves didn't register the netbook.com domain name and instead Intel did years later, suggests Psion itself didn't take the term netbook seriously until others gave it value.
Of course, having really liked Psion's past designs, I think it would be really cool for Psion to take another crack at the (renewed) market. They have the design chops. They also have a nice non-Intel platform in the Nano. Just a thought.
claiming that they are still actively selling netbooks despite also revealing sales figures showing a minuscule market share.
So, what the submitter is saying is that because Psion has a small player with "minuscule market share", the big guys should be able to ignore Psion's trademarks.
They were using the term Netbook to sell a product before the current 'Netbooks' were even conceived, they have been selling and maintaining their Netbooks since then.
'Netbook' for budget ultraportables was coined and popularised by Intel and their partners. Although a catchy nickname and it captures the nature of the product, it's not a descriptive name in itself.
Psion have every right to go after Intel who've done all they can to associate their atom and celeron based systems with the term and are now try
Looks to me like they are entitled to the trademark. They registered it, they used it. Intel's actions in this regard seem like they are trying to hijack a term.
Note quite so open and shut. Trademarks must be defended at a certain level else they will be revoked. If a trademarked works ends up slipping into common usage for too long, then you end up SOL and lose it.
Although taking someoneâ(TM)s trademark is a serious matter, we have simply asked retailers and manufacturers to transition to a different descriptive term over a 3 month term. We have not sought compensation at all from any party contacted. We have no intention of selling the âNetbookâ(TM) trademark registrations either, valuable as they may be, or of licensing them on a for-profit basis. We simply wish to continue use of our âNetbookâ(TM) trademark, and to be free to use it on our future products.
Well, the "have not sought compenasation" part is no longer true. Let's assume it's just out of date. The rest sounds like PR. By which I mean BS. If they just want everyone to stop using the term, they should give up, because that's never going to happen. Terms don't get removed from popular usage by lawsuits. Everybody calls them netbooks now. My father-in-law wants "a netbook so he can watch some internets" when he travels. Intel using something else now won't mean squat.
Psion came up with the term. Psion got the trademark. Psion made good sales up until 2007 - note this is well within the five year trademark term before it's not in use. Psion indeed still sell remaining stock. Intel started using the term 'netbook' in 2008 to describe the systems they were pushing that were in the exact same format as the Psion Netbook and Netbook Pro. Psion only wanted the websites, bloggers and companies to stop using the term 'netbook' for non Psion products. Intel's now gone too far, and Psion have had to file suit. For other entities, they have respected the trademarks - Google has put the term on the banned list for advertisements, for example.
"Netbook" is a stupid name anyway. Intel, etc, should get over themselves and call them something else.
What's 'netbook' supposed to mean, anyway? Are they somehow more connected than other portables (no). Are they so un-capable of other tasks that it can only be used to connect to the internet? (Not sure that's the message they're going for).
I tend to doubt it. It has the name of two Australian individuals on it, neither with any apparent connections to either organization, both of which have substantial blogs, and mention the domain in recent postings.
Britney Spears School of Publicity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Britney Spears School of Publicity (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Britney Spears School of Publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually think Psion might have a case here. They registered the "netBook" trademark years ago, and have been selling "netBook" branded subnotebooks continually over the last decade.
At this point, I think "Netbook" has become generic, but not through a failure of Psion to protect its trademark. Intel, while not selling a device of its own, improperly appropriated Psion's trademark for its own commercial ends (selling Atom processors to subnotebook manufacturers among others). If Sun decided that "J2EE Server" wasn't going to win any adopters, and decided to call them "Websphere servers", that would be clearly be improper, even though they weren't using to refer specifically to their implementation.
Parent
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I think this is an example of how a large corporation can away with almost anything they want.
Intel's use of "netbook" is just as wrong as if I started selling tissues called "kleenex". It's stealing someone else's name. But right & wrong doesn't matter. What matters is who has the deeper pockets, so Intel will ignore the cease-and-desist letters and just drag this in court until Psion goes bankrupt. It's a lot like what Microsoft did throughout the 90s.
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But Intel didn't steal their name. They didn't start saying "netbook" to create confusion and trade on the excellent reputation of the famous Psion netbook. Rather they, or maybe some gadget blogger, noticed that this new class of machines is useful, despite their limited specs, thanks to their access to the network, and "netbook" is kind of catchy. They weren't trying to create an artificial association with the Psion Netbooks - which are kind of like the modern ones except even slower and with out the
Re:Britney Spears School of Publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether Psion's product "caught on" in the market is irrelevant, as long as they were still selling them. You can't exactly let Intel void their trademark just because Intel is a bigger company! That's why we have trademarks in the first place.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Legally, you are probably right. But in judging Intel ethically, it matters to me whether they started saying "netbook" with the intention of stealing the name and trading on the reputation of Psions product. They clearly did not.
The real clincher (in the court of my opinion) would be whether it was even Intel that started calling them that. This is not clear to me. Certainly I first became aware of "netbook" as a generic descriptor of the class of machines, with no particular tie to Intel.
It's a good n
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No, this is slashdot. As I have tried to make clear, I am more interested in whether I personally think Intel are being evil bad guys here than in the details of the law involved. Call me arrogant if you like, but the law does not determine my opinion.
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>>>the law does not determine my opinion.
Which is why you would make a lousy judge. You'd probably demand I give-away my $300,000 savings to help my neighbor pay his mortgage because "in my opinion it's the ethical thing to do". Fortunately we run this country by law (a Republic) not your "personal feelings". My money is my property. Same with Psion:
Psion has property rights to the name "Netbook". Psion told Intel to stop using the name. Intel arrogantly ignored the letter and continued
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>>>But Intel didn't steal their name.... and "netbook" is kind of catchy.
That's fine. They mistakenly used a trademarked name. No problem. HOWEVER now that they've been informed that the name is trademarked, via a cease-and-desist letter, they are obligated to stop. Since Intel is refusing to stop, they are in violation of the law, and can be sued for damages.
>>>Psion made a product that didn't catch on; that doesn't get them the right to keep the name for all eternity
Not eternity, no,
Re:Britney Spears School of Publicity (Score:4, Insightful)
They may have registered "netBook" years ago but the only "netBook" product they list is in their discontinued product page. One of the requirements for maintaining a trademark is to actively use it.
Their focus seems to be vehicle-mounted computers, appropriate for police and delivery vehicles, and their handheld units are appropriate for managing stores (inventory control) and delivery personnel, not the target market for netbooks.
They abandoned it, and let it fall into common use, becoming a genericized trademark. I would buy a "netbook" like an Aspire One or eee PC, but I would not buy a "NETBOOK PRO" from Psion even if it were to be brought back into production.
Parent
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>>>One of the requirements for maintaining a trademark is to actively use it.
Bzzz. One of the requirements is to actively ENFORCE it, by protecting it from infringement. That is what Psion did when they sent out cease-and-desist to Intel. Intel is obligated to acknowledge the letter and comply with its demands, otherwise Intel is violating trademark law.
Intel could have easily said, "Ooops sorry," and that would have been the end. But instead it's clear Intel intends to steal somebody's else's
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This is true. Intel and the other companies currently using the term netbook to define this class of devices could have said "Ooops sorry" and that would have been the end of it.
If Psion had made their move to protect the trademark back when the Intel first started encouraging the use of this term in the media then that surely is what would have happened. But psion, in their own statements, said they waited until the latter quarters of 2008 after it was clear to them that the use of the term netbook for
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a Psion Netbook. It's a stunningly nice machine, with a really good keyboard (I mean, really good; it's got full sized keys and is extremely comfortable to type on), a decent touch-sensitive colour screen, PCMCIA, CF and a huge battery life with no moving parts.
Unfortunately by today's standards it's pretty antiquated. It runs EPOC, which may have been good then but is pretty useless today, and the 32MB of RAM isn't quite good enough to run anything else on (although you can hack Debian onto it, you
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i might have a pcmcia card that works with your netbook - an old siemens i-gate 11m with the intersil prism chipset (used it with my simpad sl4).
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I also have a Psion Netbook and have been using mine every day for years. What it lacks in connectivity it makes up for in speed, battery life and applications that do what they should and carry no bloat. The Agenda is still the best calendar app I've used. For example, you can create an entry and then add a (Psion) Word document containing information about the entry, including images, etc.
It turns on instantly. That alone puts it above any of the subnotebooks that are currently calling themselves netb
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The term 'netbook'... (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it originated (in its current incarnation, not the Psion one) in the tech press and tech community, not as a marketing term from Intel or Dell.
Also, are Asus not involved and if not, why not? They kicked this thing off.
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I've seen several references in the press that it was Intel that re-invented the netbook term to go with the Atom marchitecture, other manufacturers and the press have just followed their lead.
I have to say I'm with Psion on this one, their competitors have released a near-identical product and used their brand name, of course they're pissed. Legally speaking the size of their market share has zero relevance.
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But the fact that Psion aren't American probably does.
Echoing Ars Technica... (Score:3, Interesting)
Looks like netbooks may need a new name, for now... I recently did a whois search across all the prefixes and suffixes I could think of for small laptops (mobile-,mini-, -top, -book, etc.: net,com,org) All the .coms, .nets, and most .orgs were taken. Would one of you who has a short catchy one of these domains step forward to offer the name to the community?
-Ghostis
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Why do netbooks need a new name? It's a well-understood and generic term, just like biro or (in some countries) hoover. Let the lawyers deal with the lawyer-crap.
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Because trademark cases can sometimes take *a long time* to resolve. If the effort to clear "netbook" fails in the end, Psion may be able to get major payments from anyone who made money from it before the case was resolved. That may include regular folks, like you and I, who may get Ad Sense income from blogging about "netbooks." IANAL, but, in my humble opinion, quickly working around the situation would make everyone's lives easier.
OTOH, If Psion just settled with the big guys and then released the na
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Psion have essentially given an amnesty to bloggers and journalists using the term "netbook" (which may prove reason enough in itself to take the trademark off them since any licensing must include quality assurance). That includes blogs with advertising as explained here [jkontherun.com]:
If the sales figures are true ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Assuming around 15,000,000 netbooks were sold in 2008 at a conservative $200 per unit (and that our calculations are correct) Psion had a "netbook" market share of two thousandths of one percent in 2008 - rather low for a company claiming to hold a monopoly over the mark."
and absolutely irrelevant, especially as the sales in 2005 and 2006 show massive amounts of sales, and as they were the sole player in that market then, a 100% share. Within the past 5 years. And Intel's abuse of the trademark led to the Psion share of the netbook marking shrinking.
Psion have this one all wrapped up.
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Actually no, the netBook rather than netBook Pro figures are relevant if only because it was on the basis of a netBook flyer that Psion renewed the trademark in 2006 (long after that particular product had been discontinued). This was the basis of Dell & Intel's claims of fraud, which could well undermine the trademark altogether (assuming abandonment and/or genericide don't).
Industry should cave - and capitalize on it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the industry should all stop using the Netbook name, immediately. And then take out multiple advertisements to "clear up the confusion," pointing out how much better their fully-functional micro-laptops are.
Tag line: "Why buy a Netbook(TM) when you can have a Dell?" (with proper attribution for Netbook, naturally).
Anybody else think it's funny.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Since Netbook has NO MEANING anyway?
Psion will lose because they aren't an American company. Not because they don't have a case.
netbook.com (Score:2, Insightful)
Bonsai Laptop (Score:3, Funny)
Keep trimming off the peripherals, CPU, etc, and it will remain small.
New Psion Netbook (TM)? (Score:2)
Of course, having really liked Psion's past designs, I think it would be really cool for Psion to take another crack at the (renewed) market. They have the design chops. They also have a nice non-Intel platform in the Nano. Just a thought.
Small == wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what the submitter is saying is that because Psion has a small player with "minuscule market share", the big guys should be able to ignore Psion's trademarks.
More hypocrisy from the /. crowd.
Psion have a valid claim (Score:2)
They were using the term Netbook to sell a product before the current 'Netbooks' were even conceived, they have been selling and maintaining their Netbooks since then.
'Netbook' for budget ultraportables was coined and popularised by Intel and their partners. Although a catchy nickname and it captures the nature of the product, it's not a descriptive name in itself.
Psion have every right to go after Intel who've done all they can to associate their atom and celeron based systems with the term and are now try
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Intel should just buy out Psion, problem solved.
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Really,Yep. (Score:3, Informative)
Looks to me like they are entitled to the trademark. They registered it, they used it. Intel's actions in this regard seem like they are trying to hijack a term.
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Note quite so open and shut. Trademarks must be defended at a certain level else they will be revoked. If a trademarked works ends up slipping into common usage for too long, then you end up SOL and lose it.
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--
This comment is worded exactly as intended. Any application of lame "Fixed that for you" jokes will be "fixed for you".
Fixed that for you.
Re:Just call it something else. (Score:5, Informative)
They are not there to sue
From Psion themselves:
Is Psion looking for financial compensation?
Although taking someoneâ(TM)s trademark is a serious matter, we have simply asked retailers and
manufacturers to transition to a different descriptive term over a 3 month term. We have not
sought compensation at all from any party contacted. We have no intention of selling the
âNetbookâ(TM) trademark registrations either, valuable as they may be, or of licensing them on a
for-profit basis. We simply wish to continue use of our âNetbookâ(TM) trademark, and to be free to
use it on our future products.
Parent
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And the relevance to this case would be what?
Re:Just call it something else. (Score:5, Insightful)
Psion came up with the term.
Psion got the trademark.
Psion made good sales up until 2007 - note this is well within the five year trademark term before it's not in use.
Psion indeed still sell remaining stock.
Intel started using the term 'netbook' in 2008 to describe the systems they were pushing that were in the exact same format as the Psion Netbook and Netbook Pro.
Psion only wanted the websites, bloggers and companies to stop using the term 'netbook' for non Psion products.
Intel's now gone too far, and Psion have had to file suit.
For other entities, they have respected the trademarks - Google has put the term on the banned list for advertisements, for example.
Parent
Great summary (Score:2)
Thankyou.
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Meh. Call them small laptops.
Mead makes notebooks, as does Moleskine. ASUS and Dell make laptops, some of which are small.
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Not sure how this was modded off-topic.
"Netbook" is a stupid name anyway. Intel, etc, should get over themselves and call them something else.
What's 'netbook' supposed to mean, anyway? Are they somehow more connected than other portables (no). Are they so un-capable of other tasks that it can only be used to connect to the internet? (Not sure that's the message they're going for).
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Netpad was the ruggedised one shaped like a sanitary towel: http://www.ruteck.com/services/industrial-design/30 [ruteck.com]
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I guess Intel or Dell own it.
I tend to doubt it. It has the name of two Australian individuals on it, neither with any apparent connections to either organization, both of which have substantial blogs, and mention the domain in recent postings.