[Foundation-l] Wiki trademark issue for ZH Wikipedia in mainland China

Sat Apr 22 14:52:28 UTC 2006

Hi,

> We have found an Chinese had registered "Wiki" and "維基" (in literly it
> also means "Wiki" in Chinese) as his trademarks at 2005/11/23 in mainland
> China. Since we now have WP and WN, there might be some trademark issues in
> mainland China. Do you have any advice or suggestions that we can do?

There is Trademark in China? ;-) Alawyer should point the Trademark
office to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Wikipedia#Naming and/or
other sources (publications) to show that the name 維基 is used since
long before 2005. According to the Chinese trademark law (Article 11,
paragraph 1 and Chapter V)
http://www.chinaiprlaw.com/english/laws/laws11.htm generic names are not
allowed so you have to prove that Wiki and 維基 are generic names for
special kind of websites that were invented by Ward Cunningham.
Wikimedia Foundation does not have Trademark on Wiki or 維基 neither
because nobody can have a trademark on this.

But I don't know any chinese lawyer. At least you can find out how to
submit a application for adjudication to the Chinese Trademark Review
and Adjudication Board. The best way is to find a chinese lawyer who has
handled such an application before and who is willing to help for free.

Greetings,
Jakob

P.S: In Germany a baker has trademark for "Wiki" for cakes since 1956
but this is ok because Wikis and cakes are different things. Sadly he
does not produce the cakes anymore,I would like to taste it :-)