Item382: Trademark the term 'Foswiki' in the US.

Although we may not be under much pressure to do so, we might as well trademark "Foswiki" to avoid someone else from doing so and thereby complicating our efforts down the road. I'm willing to initiate this process immediately as I've gone through it before. I've already checked and confirmed that we can transfer the trademark over to a community-controlled organization at any point in the registration process (which proceeds over ~3 years).

Just to be clear on the matter, I am undertaking this task on behalf of the community and will make no demands for turning it over to whatever community organization is formed and duly sanctioned by the community.

In the next few days, I'll post here the draft wording of the trademark submittal.

• LynnwoodBrown - 03 Dec 2008

I did a dry run of going through the application process and it did not require description of services other than selecting the International class and sub-classes. Each international class selected costs $275 to file and I intend to file only under class 09 (Electrical and scientific apparatus) which explicitly includes "all computer programs and software regardless of recording media or means of dissemination, that is, software recorded on magnetic media or downloaded from a remote computer network."

Under Class 09, I selected the following sub-classes of services:

• Computer software development tools
• Computer software for application and database integration
• Computer software for creating searchable databases of information and data
• Computer software for the collection, editing, organizing, modifying, book marking, transmission, storage and sharing of data and information

If someone would like to go through the entire list and suggest other sub-classes I should include, feel free. See Trademark Acceptable Identification of Goods & Services.

• LynnwoodBrown - 03 Dec 2008

Just a quick update on this task. I did submit the trademark application back in April of 2009 and will continue to stay on top of the trademark process which requires a couple additional actions over the next year. As the Foswiki organization takes shape, I will stay in communication to see what action is appropriate to transfer the trademark to it or otherwise assure the trademark's ongoing safeguarding.

If you want to check on the status of the application, head to this page, click on "Search" and enter "foswiki".

-- LynnwoodBrown - 21 Sep 2009

I have received the Trademark documents and have them on file.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 31 Oct 2009

Cool. Thanks Lynnwood. How much money did you spend on this? We have some donated money left.

-- OliverKrueger - 31 Oct 2009

The money should be payed by the Foswiki Association. Likewise the ownership should be handed over to it. What is needed to do this?

-- MichaelDaum - 01 Nov 2009

On my side, I have to:

• wait till the Association is fully established
• create a bank account
• transfer the remaining money from the Paypal-account
• make the redemption to Lynnwood

-- OliverKrueger - 02 Nov 2009

Be assured, I'm simply holding the trademark until the Association is ready to hold it. I just wanted to make sure that "some other" group didn't try to grab up this trademark. It cost ~$325US to file the trademark application (I'll dig up the documentation of exact amount when the Association is ready/able to take it over).

-- LynnwoodBrown - 02 Nov 2009

I contacted Oliver today about beginning the process of transferring ownership of the trademark to the association. For reference, here's the link to trademark transfer web page. I've suggested to Oliver to ask the board to consider if they would like me to be listed as the domestic representative.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 18 Jan 2010