5 ms·

Node.js has a trademark now

70 points by NSMeta 15y ago

va_coder 15y ago
Trademarks are interesting. I don't know if this is an apples to apples comparison, but I remember 5 years back there was a big issue with JBoss and trademarks. One guy trademarked the name and made a boatload of money when his group sold the rights to Redhat. And I believe many of the open source developers that contributed were not allowed to use the name for commercial purposes. http://thejbossissue.blogspot.com/2005/10/free-open-source-software-foss-and.html http://thejbossissue.blogspot.com/2005/10/free-open-source-s... Does anyone know if there is some kind of 'open source trademark' to prevent a Marc Fleury/JBoss incident?
- sh1mmer 15y ago
  Disclaimer: I work at Joyent, not legal advice, yada yada We don't want to be that guy, but we have to enforce the trademark now (in order to keep it), to allow us to use it stop any abuse to the community that might happen in the future.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    Ask your lawyer for advice on whether this is a good idea or not, but I have heard of people protecting their trademark by sending out "Permit and Proceed" letters when they identified people using their mark in a non-harmful way that would otherwise require trademark defense. Looks like I heard that from an old Slashdot story about Linden Labs: http://slashdot.org/story/07/01/31/0216258/Linden-Labs-Sends-Permit-and-Proceed-Letter http://slashdot.org/story/07/01/31/0216258/Linden-Labs-Sends...
  - bliss 15y ago
    Surely the trademark is node.js - that's what everyone calls it...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
dchest 15y ago
From Trademark Policy: Examples of things which are not nominative fair use and not permitted without a license: • Use of a trademark in a domain name (e.g., nodeconsultingservices.com) They trademarked "Node.js", but claim that having "node" in your domain requires a license? Edit: BTW, I have registered this domain.
- leftnode 15y ago
  That's what I was wondering too. My business name is Leftnode Software, my domain is leftnode.com, I've gone by the moniker leftnode for a while now (from before node.js development started, I believe). I hope that was just a typo in their document and they meant nodejsconsultingservices.com would not be allowed.
- wildmXranat 15y ago
  If that is true, it's one way to legally enforce your own search relevance, but it sucks for everyone else involved.
- jerf 15y ago
  They would be able to prevent you from using "nodeconsultingservices" to provide consulting services for Node.js, but I suspect they won't try to sue people who just coincidentally have Node in their name, especially if they predate the trademark filing or the project itself. The word "node" is simply a noun, in wide use across a number of disciplines above and beyond computer science, and they can't just grab it wholesale. Think "Microsoft Windows"; the fact that it is trademarked up the wazoo has not prevented the use of the term in its preexisting manners. IANAL, but it's not time to panic yet.
  - kingkilr 15y ago
    That's because they can't, in the US trademarks are scoped to the domain they exist in.
- Kudose 15y ago
  Node is a common word. I would fight them to the death if they sued me over nodecode.com (which someone has already private registered). IMHO, this is just a precursor to a sellout.
chapel 15y ago
This is probably the best way they could have handled it. It protects the name from abuse while still allowing enough freedom for those wanting to use it legitimately. They don't call Ryan Dahl a BDFL for nothing.
- va_coder 15y ago
  What kind of abuse?
  - chapel 15y ago
    Someone registering the trademark underneath them, using the trademark for illegal activities, pretty much anything negative. Some people seem to be alarmed and think that you won't be able to use node/node.js in your domain names, but you just need to get a license. Like with anything else.
    - va_coder 15y ago
      Cool. So if/when Oracle buys Joyent they won't use the trademark for nefarious purposes? Why not transfer it to Apache? Have people abused Apache server? Apache Lucene? Apache CouchDB? We heard the same thing from Sun about Java. It's a slippery slope. Anyone who puts a lot of time or effort into Node at this point and later gets burned has no one to blame but themselves.
      - pquerna 15y ago
        I would prefer that node was part of a non-profit foundation of some kind rather than Joyent, but that is largely under the bridge at this point. It was discussed heavily when this change was made in november 2010: http://markmail.org/message/wyi2r4ntzlmawp6e#query:+page:1+mid:e6mgrlq5r6x4xxsb+state:results http://markmail.org/message/wyi2r4ntzlmawp6e#query:+page:1+m...
      - carson 15y ago
        The thing to keep in mind is that this is just a trademark on a product. It isn't a patent on the idea of a server side evented javascript engine. There is nothing stopping someone from creating another engine that works exactly the same way and that is compatible with all the current modules.
bane 15y ago
Be aware, anybody who is thinking of securing a Trademark for their product/business etc. A Trademark is not like copyright, you must enforce it as soon as you find out about a violation or lose it. That explains why many companies get tangled up in lawsuits that might otherwise not be in their best interest (shutting down fan projects, suing partners or non-related companies, etc.). In otherwords, you better have a legal account set aside and stuffed full of money.
ifesdjeen 15y ago
noone cares that Ruby on Rails is a registered trademark of DHH, see '"Rails", "Ruby on Rails", and the Rails logo are registered trademarks of David Heinemeier Hansson. All rights reserved.' on the bottom of rails website. They want to use that name, and they won't sue people for making consultancy business based on that technology for certain, since that's the way development of platform goes.
smoody 15y ago
I didn't realize that it is possible to trademark something after it has been used widely as a non-trademarked term. Isn't that why Aspirin couldn't be trademarked?
- kristofferR 15y ago
  "used widely" is very relative.
  - bliss 15y ago
    the word "node" has been used widely for years, they seem to be claiming rights to that word - the joyent rep above says that they are not claiming rights to the word node, but the text of the claim I just read states just that. don't get me wrong, i'm not a competitor or anyting - node.js is a cool tech that I'm currently playing with (would likely not have clicked the link otherwise), but the MASSIVE distinction between node.js and the simple word node is cause for concern for me
    - Kudose 15y ago
      Exactly ... they CANNOT trademark the word Node. This word has been in the dictionary since the 16th century derived from the Latin word nōdus, meaning knot.
gojomo 15y ago
This sentence from the post doesn't quite mean what was intended: We decided to introduce trademarks on the “Node.js” and the “Node logo” in order to ensure that people or organisations who are not investing in the Node community misrepresent, or create confusion about the role of themselves or their products with Node. (Throwing in another negative – "...to ensure that people or organizations who are not investing... can't misrepresent.." – would be a quick fix at the cost of introducing a double-negative. But I'd suggest a more radical simplification: "...in order to prevent anyone from misrepresenting their role with Node.")
nodesocket 15y ago
We have emailed Joyent in regards to this new 'policy'. Also, the fellas at NodeJitsu are in the same boat.

70 points by NSMeta 15y ago

Trademarks are interesting. I don't know if this is an apples to apples comparison, but I remember 5 years back there was a big issue with JBoss and trademarks. One guy trademarked the name and made a boatload of money when his group sold the rights to Redhat. And I believe many of the open source developers that contributed were not allowed to use the name for commercial purposes. http://thejbossissue.blogspot.com/2005/10/free-open-source-software-foss-and.html http://thejbossissue.blogspot.com/2005/10/free-open-source-s... Does anyone know if there is some kind of 'open source trademark' to prevent a Marc Fleury/JBoss incident?

sh1mmer 15y ago
Disclaimer: I work at Joyent, not legal advice, yada yada We don't want to be that guy, but we have to enforce the trademark now (in order to keep it), to allow us to use it stop any abuse to the community that might happen in the future.
- Natsu 15y ago
  Ask your lawyer for advice on whether this is a good idea or not, but I have heard of people protecting their trademark by sending out "Permit and Proceed" letters when they identified people using their mark in a non-harmful way that would otherwise require trademark defense. Looks like I heard that from an old Slashdot story about Linden Labs: http://slashdot.org/story/07/01/31/0216258/Linden-Labs-Sends-Permit-and-Proceed-Letter http://slashdot.org/story/07/01/31/0216258/Linden-Labs-Sends...
- bliss 15y ago
  Surely the trademark is node.js - that's what everyone calls it...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

dchest 15y ago

From Trademark Policy: Examples of things which are not nominative fair use and not permitted without a license: • Use of a trademark in a domain name (e.g., nodeconsultingservices.com) They trademarked "Node.js", but claim that having "node" in your domain requires a license? Edit: BTW, I have registered this domain.

leftnode 15y ago
That's what I was wondering too. My business name is Leftnode Software, my domain is leftnode.com, I've gone by the moniker leftnode for a while now (from before node.js development started, I believe). I hope that was just a typo in their document and they meant nodejsconsultingservices.com would not be allowed.
wildmXranat 15y ago
If that is true, it's one way to legally enforce your own search relevance, but it sucks for everyone else involved.
jerf 15y ago
They would be able to prevent you from using "nodeconsultingservices" to provide consulting services for Node.js, but I suspect they won't try to sue people who just coincidentally have Node in their name, especially if they predate the trademark filing or the project itself. The word "node" is simply a noun, in wide use across a number of disciplines above and beyond computer science, and they can't just grab it wholesale. Think "Microsoft Windows"; the fact that it is trademarked up the wazoo has not prevented the use of the term in its preexisting manners. IANAL, but it's not time to panic yet.
- kingkilr 15y ago
  That's because they can't, in the US trademarks are scoped to the domain they exist in.
Kudose 15y ago
Node is a common word. I would fight them to the death if they sued me over nodecode.com (which someone has already private registered). IMHO, this is just a precursor to a sellout.

chapel 15y ago

This is probably the best way they could have handled it. It protects the name from abuse while still allowing enough freedom for those wanting to use it legitimately. They don't call Ryan Dahl a BDFL for nothing.

va_coder 15y ago
What kind of abuse?
- chapel 15y ago
  Someone registering the trademark underneath them, using the trademark for illegal activities, pretty much anything negative. Some people seem to be alarmed and think that you won't be able to use node/node.js in your domain names, but you just need to get a license. Like with anything else.
  - va_coder 15y ago
    Cool. So if/when Oracle buys Joyent they won't use the trademark for nefarious purposes? Why not transfer it to Apache? Have people abused Apache server? Apache Lucene? Apache CouchDB? We heard the same thing from Sun about Java. It's a slippery slope. Anyone who puts a lot of time or effort into Node at this point and later gets burned has no one to blame but themselves.
    - pquerna 15y ago
      I would prefer that node was part of a non-profit foundation of some kind rather than Joyent, but that is largely under the bridge at this point. It was discussed heavily when this change was made in november 2010: http://markmail.org/message/wyi2r4ntzlmawp6e#query:+page:1+mid:e6mgrlq5r6x4xxsb+state:results http://markmail.org/message/wyi2r4ntzlmawp6e#query:+page:1+m...
    - carson 15y ago
      The thing to keep in mind is that this is just a trademark on a product. It isn't a patent on the idea of a server side evented javascript engine. There is nothing stopping someone from creating another engine that works exactly the same way and that is compatible with all the current modules.

bane 15y ago

Be aware, anybody who is thinking of securing a Trademark for their product/business etc. A Trademark is not like copyright, you must enforce it as soon as you find out about a violation or lose it. That explains why many companies get tangled up in lawsuits that might otherwise not be in their best interest (shutting down fan projects, suing partners or non-related companies, etc.). In otherwords, you better have a legal account set aside and stuffed full of money.

ifesdjeen 15y ago

noone cares that Ruby on Rails is a registered trademark of DHH, see '"Rails", "Ruby on Rails", and the Rails logo are registered trademarks of David Heinemeier Hansson. All rights reserved.' on the bottom of rails website. They want to use that name, and they won't sue people for making consultancy business based on that technology for certain, since that's the way development of platform goes.

smoody 15y ago

I didn't realize that it is possible to trademark something after it has been used widely as a non-trademarked term. Isn't that why Aspirin couldn't be trademarked?

kristofferR 15y ago
"used widely" is very relative.
- bliss 15y ago
  the word "node" has been used widely for years, they seem to be claiming rights to that word - the joyent rep above says that they are not claiming rights to the word node, but the text of the claim I just read states just that. don't get me wrong, i'm not a competitor or anyting - node.js is a cool tech that I'm currently playing with (would likely not have clicked the link otherwise), but the MASSIVE distinction between node.js and the simple word node is cause for concern for me
  - Kudose 15y ago
    Exactly ... they CANNOT trademark the word Node. This word has been in the dictionary since the 16th century derived from the Latin word nōdus, meaning knot.

gojomo 15y ago

This sentence from the post doesn't quite mean what was intended: We decided to introduce trademarks on the “Node.js” and the “Node logo” in order to ensure that people or organisations who are not investing in the Node community misrepresent, or create confusion about the role of themselves or their products with Node. (Throwing in another negative – "...to ensure that people or organizations who are not investing... can't misrepresent.." – would be a quick fix at the cost of introducing a double-negative. But I'd suggest a more radical simplification: "...in order to prevent anyone from misrepresenting their role with Node.")

nodesocket 15y ago

We have emailed Joyent in regards to this new 'policy'. Also, the fellas at NodeJitsu are in the same boat.