Psion says it's only going after those "profiting" from the term netbook

Psion, Psion. We hadn't really heard from the British portable maker since the halcyon days of the Series5, but it's back and making waves with a series of nastygrams asserting its trademark of the word "netbook." Psion's legal team followed up with jkOnTheRun, and according to them, it's only going after those sites and companies "making a direct, financial profit from use of the 'Netbook' trademark." (As opposed to profit in kind, we suppose -- did you know our advertisers pay us in toaster waffles and aviator sunglasses? True story.) Psion says it's mostly focused on retailers and manufacturers using the term netbook to sell machines, not "straight blogs" and other sites. Of course, that means next to nothing, since Psion says it'll still go after those sites that have sponsored ads or for-profit links containing the word "netbook" -- including automatically-placed ads and links like AdSense and Amazon affiliate ads that site owners typically have no control over. +10 weasel, dudes. Anyway, considering the widespread adoption of "netbook" in the past year with nary a peep from Psion, we'd say the term is pretty well generic and no longer a valid trademark at this point -- we'll see how it goes when it drags the first heavy-hitter using the term (like Intel) into court.

Disclaimer: Nilay's a lawyer and secret Asian netbook ODM, but he's not your lawyer and this isn't legal advice or analysis.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 25th 2009 2:08PM]

Did anyone check the wiki article on Netbook? I know wiki isn't the end all of information but it does give a good insight to the current term Netbook:
"Led by the popularization of small-form-factor laptops by Asus and then others, the term 'netbook' became a widely used and genericized[10][11] industry classification rather than a reference to a particular product. By April 2008, Intel had begun officially using the term netbook to recognize a specific sub-category of laptops." they link this page and another with 10/11. the other pages also states

"It's certainly true that Psion produced a pioneering product, the Psion NetBook, almost a decade ago. However, it wasn't a netbook in today's terms: it was really a Psion Series 7 organizer, a scaled-up Series 5, running EPOC not a scaled down notebook PC. (The later NetBook Pro -- launched in 2003 -- ran Microsoft Windows CE, Psion having failed to keep up with the times.)"
Although it is called a "netBook", the name predates the current devices (like the EEE PC) that are sold as "netbooks". It has a clamshell design and is sub-notebook sized. In Fact Intel re-introducted the "netbook" term in 2008, a few years after the production of Psion netBooks was discontinued.

So if the product is almost a decade old and the name has been used as an industry term and not just the name of equipment, especially since the current meaning of the term does not actually cover the Psion product since it wasn't by todays standards a "netbook" more of a sub-notebook/pda(it looks like several smart phone models I've seen), it's like trying to sue over a backronym, the meaning has changed, how many people that haven't heard of Psion would associate netbook with Psion; or with a small, cheap, less powerful notebook? and how many would think oh yeah my brother got a Scion?

side note: when i worked in fast food people used to order a "coke" most of the time even though our sign clearly said we carried Pepsi products.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 16th 2009 4:54PM]

"Save the Netbooks" campaign launched to fight impending trademark threat

The "Save the Netbooks" campaign is fighting the impending trademark threat
from Psion Teklogix, who have given until the end of March 2009 to cease using
the term citing trademarks relating to a line of products discontinued over 5
years ago.

For more information visit http://www.savethenetbooks.com/.