Looks like
smartbooks really are the new netbooks, after all. Aptly exemplifying déjà vu, German company Smartbook AG has issued a cease-and-desist to
Netbooknews.de, claiming it owns the trademark and copyright on the term "smartbook" and that its use on the news site is damaging to the company's reputation and credibility. The letter demands that within two weeks all instances of the word be stricken from both the German and English-language versions, despite the latter being hosted in the US, outside of German jurisdiction. Of course, the logical thing would be to go after a company
like Qualcomm who's been using the designation all along, and not the outlets who report on it, but why let a little common sense get in the way of some good ol' fashioned internet drama, eh Smartbook? By our count, it was almost exactly six months between Psion sending out its
first cease-and-desist on "netbook" to media outlets and its
eventual acquiescence and settlement with Intel, so consider the clock here officially ticking.
[Via
jkOnTheRun]
posted Aug 30th 2009 2:09PM
Awesome image choice for this article.
Yeah - awesome image. Where can I downoad that?
You can download the exact image above by right-clicking on it then selecting "view image" then right-clicking on the image and clicking "save image".
If already knew that and wanted a higher quality pic then you are out of luck....
Wish there had actually been a ST:TNG episode where this happened...
Great image choice.
However I will now go out of my way to make sure I never buy anything from this company. Which isn't hard because I don't know who they are.
totally agree... they suck. and should never buy any product from them. following that logic, we should never use the word "intel" (which we use a lot, short for intelligence), and word "windows" (msft own it)... and when we have a problem or question, we should not say just "google" it... dah!
Not to mention the word "word", which M$ owns, too.
I hope it succeeds.
Qualcomm can't run smartphones from HTC properly..."Smartbook" is just out of question. Thank you very much!
I hope you all are having a good Sunday
RIght back at you, Daniel. How's the weather in your neck of the woods? We're at a hot 67deg F and the Flea Market is going strong as every Sunday ;-)
AJ: 67 sounds nice, its 98 and muggier than a patch of cow crap here in Houston!
does ross really not see the differences between the psion case and this one? whereas psion was crying over the use of the name of one of its discontinued products, smartbook ag is concerned about the use of its company name.
I like ice cream
Oh yeah, which flavour?
@OliD,
Since GroovDude didn't answer, my favorite is Butter Pecan. How's Canada, btw?
I like th Breyers Cookies & Cream, simple, creamy and soft. If I'm lucky enough, it will be a root beer float.
Mmm root beer. I dont like ice cream, is that a sin?
Ice cream sure is tasty, tastes good with all kinds of toppings!
@Oli
That is not a sin, it's a disgrace to all things in the universe... T_T
@Daniel T
I'll put a chocolate shell on mine, or add additional crunched up oreos. ^_^
When did this place become Twitter?
You think the rest of us give a rat's behind what flavor of ice cream you like? Here's a flavor for you: "Boot To the Head." (see The Frantics)
OLight, this is a satirical conversation highlighting the boringness of the story, which we have seen manifested in several slightly varying ways over the last few years.
You need to chill the flip out.
It says that site is sponsored by Qualcomm, interesting... They can just call them something else in Germany then. I like the name Smartbook anyway. They can just translate it to German for Germany's market then.
Eventually someone is going to figure out that these things are good for taking notes and we'll finally be able to drop the rest of these stupid marketing terms. Like sane people.
Or we could just stop now.
Smart people should send out C&D letters to Smartbook AG for misusing the word "smart."
How about calling them laptops.
Those are ARM powered laptops, basically. Calling them something else is useless.
Only Intel has an interest in calling netbooks differently than laptops, as the more people who buy netbooks instead of laptops, the less money Intel is making.
On the contrary, the more people buy ARM Laptops instead of Intel Laptops, would be good for ARM, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale, Marvell, Samsung and anyone else making ARM processors in this market.
Please Qualcomm if you read this:
Simply call them Laptops!
Qualcomm Snapdragon Powered.
Just work on making sure a full Google Chrome browser can work on them eventually with an unlimited amount of tabs, full flash support, and that all this works smoothly and instantly. Then people won't see the difference with a twice as expensive much more power hungry laptop powered by Intel.
really? no ASCII version of this? thought you guys would have been all over this...
............................................________
....................................,.-‘”...................``~.,
.............................,.-”...................................“-.,
.........................,/...............................................”:,
.....................,?......................................................\,
.................../...........................................................,}
................./......................................................,:`^`..}
.............../...................................................,:”........./
..............?.....__.........................................:`.........../
............./__.(.....“~-,_..............................,:`........../
.........../(_....”~,_........“~,_....................,:`........_/
..........{.._$;_......”=,_.......“-,_.......,.-~-,},.~”;/....}
...........((.....*~_.......”=-._......“;,,./`..../”............../
...,,,___.\`~,......“~.,....................`.....}............../
............(....`=-,,.......`........................(......;_,,-”
............/.`~,......`-...............................\....../\
.............\`~.*-,.....................................|,./.....\,__
,,_..........}.>-._\...................................|..............`=~-,
.....`=~-,_\_......`\,.................................\
...................`=~-,,.\,...............................\
................................`:,,...........................`\..............__
.....................................`=-,...................,%`>--==``
........................................_\..........._,-%.......`\
...................................,
Priceless :)
In Germany, this is actually a pretty common practice. There are some lawyers that make a living by writing cease and desist letters; A famous example is Günter Werner Freiherr von Gravenreuth. They never target big companies, though, because they know that those have a legal department that would react accordingly. They target small companies, private people, and students who use trademarked terms on their webpage. Since the law in Germany allows you to choose the any court in the country (after all, the internet isn't bound to any location), they threaten that they'll sue you in a court far away from your hometown, unless you pay them a ridiculous amount of money for the effort of writing the cease and desist letter.
Sixiam,
To borrow an over used and often undeserved internet complement your post is so full of Win, I can't express it in words.
IT'S A LAPTOP!! IT FITS ON YOUR LAP!!
This is understandable. It should be cheaper to take a news outlet to court than a larger company. Not only that, but if they can set a precedent or get a favorable ruling from the smaller entity, then they can target the larger one. They can get another favorable ruling, a high settlement offer or even demand royalties depending upon the situation.
Pokebooks? Pukebooks? ...
Actually, this is precisely what Smartbooks must do to protect its trademark. A trademark owner loses his rights if the term becomes a generic term used to name the goods in question. Publications that use the term "smartbook" to name a type of good produced by multiple manufacturers are making the term generic and thus destroying Smartbooks' trademark rights. Why criticize a company for merely doing what it must do to protect its name?
Let's call them $martbooks and call it a day. I can't believe people (read: attorneys) waste time with this.
glad this doesn't affect http://www.smartbook.asia so i can still get my daily fix