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

Sun Apr 23 17:47:46 UTC 2006

2006/4/23, THD <theodoranian at gmail.com>:
> 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

I am not into Chinese trademark law, but in general is it not a
defense against a claim of trademark violation that one used the
trademark continuously since BEFORE the person claiming violation used
it? I know that this is the case here in the Netherlands, there is
even the rule that if that other person knew about your previous use
of the trademark, their registration is considered mala fide, and can
be cancelled on those grounds.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels