Python Software Foundation Reaches Settlement, Ends Trademark Dispute

http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2013/03/python-software-foundation-reaches.html

by jnoller • 13 years ago

110 13 13 years ago

pyfound.blogspot.com

Can someone explain to me why anyone would want to sue the python foundation? I mean, maybe if the company was unrelated to programming... but a hosting company? Wouldn't they know?

SoftwareMaven• 13 years ago

They weren't suing the PSF. They were registering "Python" as a trademark and the PSF was trying to prevent that from happening.

Sounds like this company recognized the potential damage going against the PSF would have to their cloud service offering, even if they might technically have been in the right. Good for them!

Leftium• 13 years ago

[The CEO]confirmed that he'd not involved any technical staff in the decisions he'd made about the Python product brand, and told me he regretted that as it would probably have helped him understand the likely reaction to his trademark challenge.

Source: http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2013/02/respondi...

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5248328

shared4you• 13 years ago

Was this a financial settlement? If yea, how much did PSF had to pay? The post doesn't talk about it.

amalcon• 13 years ago

That sort of thing is usually under non-disclosure.

briancurtin• 13 years ago

The details of the settlement are not public.

-press release author

mmcnickle• 13 years ago

As a non-profit, won't the PSF have to disclose the expenditure somewhere?

kriro• 13 years ago

The wording "Python software language" from the PR kind of makes me think that their business folks do indeed not know what Python is.

Either way, great that this got settled pretty quickly :)

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

What a pleasantly amicable settlement of what could have been a thorny issue. I get so used to people trying to abuse patents and trademarks I'm now shocked when they say "Oh, ok, I see what you mean, fine we'll do this differently."

gph• 13 years ago

Yea, it's nice to see. Though the cynical side of my brain is thinking that Veber backed down because they knew their customer base is basically all techies and they might not want to piss them off. If Veber was in a different business line and had branded and trademarked let's say their line of high performance tyres, I think they might not have backed down so readily.

Still glad it worked out, Veber deserves credit for that no matter the ultimate motive.

Edit: Guess I'm mistaken, thanks for the correction duskwuff

duskwuff2• 13 years ago

If the trademark application had been for tyres, the issue wouldn't have arisen at all.

Trademarks are usually registered for a specific category of goods or services -- hence, we can have Monster energy drinks and Monster.com job search and Monster cables all trademarked by different companies, since they're all different categories. The issue here was that Veber was trying to register a "Python" trademark that would have conflicted with the PSF's existing use of the name.

Nux• 13 years ago

Well, that's some free advertising/exposure.

I don't believe they are in the hosting business and don't know what Python is. They're either idiots or at the contrary, quite clever. Had they gone through with it though, they might have suffered a bit of wrath from some anonymous pythonistas... I could see it happen. :-D

duskwuff2• 13 years ago

They're definitely in the hosting business. Either that, or they've put a heck of a lot of effort into making it look like they are. :P

http://veber.co.uk/

Python Software Foundation Reaches Settlement, Ends Trademark Dispute

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