[Foundation-l] Wikipedia trademark not registered by Wikimedia Foundation

Sun Apr 23 18:58:56 UTC 2006

Hello,

I recently looked up the German Patent and Trade Mark Office's
database for "Wikipedia". It resulted in two hits.

One is about the trademark "Wikipedia" in the area of tents, clothes,
shoes and sportsware and dates back to mid 2004.

The other one is about the trademark "Wikipedia" in three classes
containing a lot of IT related stuff including database service, data
collecting, telecommunication in general, online informations
services.

Owner is a company called "Firestorm Forces Ltd." and searching on it
together with Wikipedia I learned they're involved some bad
anti-Wikipedia agitation. Seems they're also acting as "Infochannel
Group" and as those clashed with german Wikipedians because of their
entry ([[Infochannel Group]]) in de.wikipedia. They also run a site
called Encyclopedia Wikimania (http://www.wikimania.co.uk), a quite
strange one with no real content.

I can't say if the classes they registered are relevant and interfere
with what "our" Wikipedia does. But it might be and then it could
become troublesome for us.

The trademark was filed in November last year and puplicated on
January 27th 2006. That means the opposition period end on April 27th.

Maybe someone is interested in doing some more research and foundating
might think about filing an opposition.

Regards,
Jürgen