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

Sun Apr 23 17:12:38 UTC 2006

Hi,
There are some things different between Chinese characters and English word.
Every Chinese character has its own meaning. When we translate a foriegn
language into Chinese, sometimes we do it by meaning, but more often we use
characters with similar pronunciation for translation. Wiki is a generic
name, so it can't be a trade mark. In Chinese sphere, wiki can be translate
in many ways. Such as 維基 (now all the Wikimedia projects in Chinese
language, the first one pronunces as "wei", and the second pronunces as
"gee"), 圍紀(first "wei", second "gee"), and 維客(first "wei" , second "ke")etc.
維基 is one of translations of the word "wiki", and it was chosen by Chinese
Wikipedians to be the only name of Chinese Wikipedia. Before Chinese
Wikipedian's choosing 維基 as the name, there was no famous name of wiki
technology. The problem is "if we don't register 維基, the Chinese Wikipedia
will face the challenge of changing its name (in Chinese)". Wikipedia is one
word, but 維基百科 have 4 characters.  In Chinese text trade mark, the
government protect the usage of charater singly.When someone registers 維基,
other people can't use 維基 in their own trade mark. So the situation is not
the same.
THD

在 2006/4/22，Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> 撰寫：
>
> 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 :-)
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