Palm's sickening action Vs. Top Developer

[wils_place]

Hi Guys, just want to direct your attention to this piece of news.

http://www.pda-247.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=23749

Enough Said :mad:

More Links

http://www.plmpowerups.com/PalmPowerups.php
http://www.plmpowerups.com/PalmLetter.pdf

[Clie Patra]

Instead of thanking Dmitri for ironing out a lot of Palm's flaws and bugs, this is how they treat him. I seriously think they lost their minds (the Foleo was a first sign of that, now this).

[Dick Tracy]

If one uses any trademarked name in any product that produces revenue, one better get permission from the trademark owner first. Palm is within their rights to take the action they did.

[lichan]

But by ignoring many other more well-traveled websites that sell software with Palm in their name they have shown that they are not interested in protecting their trademark but in carrying out a vendetta against Dmitry.

[_Em]

Considering Palm is as common a word as Window, I think Palm Inc. would have an EXTREMELY hard time enforcing this suit. Palm, Inc has a trademark on Palm Pilot(R), PalmOS(R), Palm, Inc.(R), but I don't think they can trademark "palm", even in relationship to handheld devices. Since Dmitry is not using their logo, colors, software links, trademarked names or other palm-related items, I think the only thing that stops him from ignoring this is that they've got more money than he does and he doesn't want to get into a lawsuit with an already embattled company that he's trying to sell software for.

Personally, I would have renamed it to PαlmPowerups or something similar (second letter is alpha, for those of you who don't see it display correctly).

[jigwashere]

Considering Palm is as common a word as Window, I think Palm Inc. would have an EXTREMELY hard time enforcing this suit.

What suit? From what I can tell, he got a letter asking him to rename his site and software. He's agreed to do that. The issue seems closed. Why all the hand wringing and crying?

[Dick Tracy]

Palm IS a trademarked name and Dmitry was using it in PalmSDHC. If you do a little homework, you will find that ZZTechs recently renamed one of their applications after receiving a similar letter. Their reaction has been significantly more mature than Dmitry's.

[Joel]

If I remember right, we got a similar letter from Sony and Palm a few years ago. No issues there, we changed things around ... and the site remained as happy as ever. :)

[BaDZeD]

Palm was totally within their rights to ask the developer not to infinge on their trademark. Otherwise, they could end up loosing their brand like Spam and Rollerblade,

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Nice to see some mature, nice word Dick Tracy, posts about this subject.

There has been a lot of rhetoric and misdirection on this subject but is clearly a matter of looking after their own brand.

For those looking for conspiracies, there is a new XFiles movie out to sate your appetite.


David

[StoneRyno]

As pointed out though why request this name to be changed but at least a 1/2 dozen other commercial sites who all use "Palm" in their names not be forced to change their names. To be honest this is petty of Palm and also as someone else mentioned seemed to be a targeted attack against this developer for having fixed problems with their devices through 3rd party solutions. IMO I think Palm should apologize for making the request if not offer something more in a show of gratitude for his help. I'm sure without the 3rd party solutions Palm would not have sold as many devices as they have and possibly still do.

[headcronie]

How long can you choose to ignore the fact that other companies have changed the name of their products in recent days?

Get over it. It is not targeted at Dmitry because of his driver development. Coincidental? At most, yes. Otherwise, you're just looking to blame fault.

[reb2]

Palm thought that they could intimidate Dimitry and now they are trying to save face by some late action toward a few others. The damage to palm and there name is now complete and it has been done by there own paranoid action. Palm makes more money on smart phones. They would like to see the original OS for palm disappear in hopes that a larger number of users would by the over priced smart phones with limited function. I do not blame them for trying to follow a market trend to get sales. I do blame them for not giving and discouraging any support for there existing devises.

[headcronie]

Palm thought that they could intimidate Dimitry and now they are trying to save face by some late action toward a few others.

And you know this time line for fact? I'd like to see your Palm internal document showing when Dmitry was notified and then the time that the others were. Or are you just creating this as you go?

Lets get real here people.

[wjriii]

Was Palm within their rights? Yes.

Do they have discretion as to when to assert their right? Yes.

Without more concrete facts, everything else is opinion and supposition.

[ricktt3]

As pointed out though why request this name to be changed but at least a 1/2 dozen other commercial sites who all use "Palm" in their names not be forced to change their names. To be honest this is petty of Palm and also as someone else mentioned seemed to be a targeted attack against this developer for having fixed problems with their devices through 3rd party solutions. IMO I think Palm should apologize for making the request if not offer something more in a show of gratitude for his help. I'm sure without the 3rd party solutions Palm would not have sold as many devices as they have and possibly still do.

Geez, you guys really need to read the letter that Palm sent to dmitry. Here is the excerpt that shows their reasoning:

To that end Palm has asked me to contact you regarding your use of the website title "Palmpowerups" and the product name "PalmSDHC" in connection with your driver product. Let me say at the outset that Palm appreciates your interest in and support of its products however Palm is concerned that your use of the PALM trademark in the "Palmpowerups" website title and the "PalmSDHC" product name is likely to give customers and potential customers the erroneous impression that your company has a relationship with Palm or that the information and products provided on your site have been authorized for release or approved by Palm.

Think about it for a minute - if something in his driver bricked a whole bunch of PDAs, then people may start coming after Palm because it had their name on it. Trademark is very important to a company's reputation and dmitry should acknowledge that or he shouldn't be writing programs. He would go ape*** if someone released a program that included something about palmpowerups, or plmpowerups, in the name or description.

[robitaille88]

It appears Palm is trying to reserve all PalmXXXXXX application names for themselves.

And while I DO agree it is within Palm's rights to do so, you need to look at the broader circumstances.

1) Dmitry's site PalmPowerups had been up for over 5 years.
2) Dmitry had been in friendly contact with PalmOne/Palm Inc. over those years to no problems
3) Dmitry recieves the legal letter a few weeks after his highly-publicized beta SDHC driver is released
4) Dmitry is not the only developer to recieve a legal letter. 3GX software was ordered to renamed PalmRevolt, and ZZTechs (the creators of ZLauncher) were ordered to renamed PalmInsiderPro.

I could see where PalmSDHC could cause some customer confusion, but not PalmRevolt, and not PalmInsiderPro.

Plus, keep in mind all 3 of those programs were named after either "palm", as in a handheld device (not Palm Inc. the company), or the former PalmOS (now called GarnetOS).

And keep in mind PalmInsiderPro, PalmRevolt and the PalmPowrups website existed before the PalmOS was renamed GarnetOS (and the name Palm was bought by PalmOne).

[harpgliss]

Hi,

The many threads across here, Brighthand and PIC, to name a few need to have one big fork stuck in them.

He complied with the letter sent to him as, I assume, he realizes he needed to do.

If not, he would have fought other than a meaningless misdirection and distortion of the facts.

The deed is done and everyone needs to move, there is nothing more to see here.

I know this will go right over those who do not want to see the facts for what they are.

The facts are what they are and no matter how they are distorted by rhetoric, they do not change.

David

[robitaille88]

Hi,

The many threads across here, Brighthand and PIC, to name a few need to have one big fork stuck in them.

He complied with the letter sent to him as, I assume, he realizes he needed to do.

If not, he would have fought other than a meaningless misdirection and distortion of the facts.

The deed is done and everyone needs to move, there is nothing more to see here.

I know this will go right over those who do not want to see the facts for what they are.

The facts are what they are and no matter how they are distorted by rhetoric, they do not change.

David
I totally agree that the whole Dmitry vs. Palm thing is, in actuality, quite settled. I just want to bring up that Dmitry isn't the only big GarnetOS developer to recieve legal notice (see my above post)

[harpgliss]

Hi,

I started typing before your post was there.

So, even though my post is below yours, it is not in response to your post.

For those who feel they do have a right to not change their apps or site names, there are options such as going public with a local paper or news station.

That would get you the notice and possible support needed.

Also there legal options that are free or so heavily discounted to be available to all.

David

[StoneRyno]

I understand that there is no real issue between palm and the developer who has decided to just change the name. I also don't personally know or even use the products from that site. I only raise the fact that palms reasoning for the request is biased. For the person(s) claiming others have been asked to change their names at the same time. Has palminfocenter, freewarepalm, palmblvd, palmopensource, etc been asked to change their names so they aren't mistaken as part of palm? After all they and the cited one from the OP are clearly 3rd parties yet as far as I'm aware they haven't all been asked to change their names. And this is why I argue that palm has blundered. If palm on the other hand has requested all 3rd parties who use palm in the sites name and or products name change their names, since they all fit the reasoning palm stated for one to change its names, then I withdraw my statements I have posted in this thread.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

StoneRyno, the sites you list, are all commercial sites that further the Palm brand in a positive way.

They list many apps by many developers as opposed to Dmitrys.

They are not a site run by an individual to further his own brand over that of Palm.

The site Dmitry runs is just a vehicle for him to sell his own apps.

I am not seeing a double standard here, maybe the only one here that doesn't.


David

[StoneRyno]

I guess I don't see a distiction between a 3rd part developer and a 3rd party hosting 3rd party developer content and or providing palm related content. To me if by "using the palm name confuses consumers" into thinking the site and its product(s) are official, then any site with palm in its name would confuse consumers. However if as someone pointed out its because of the driver(s) then that leads me to two questions. Is this the only 3rd party driver developer? And if the fact that it is a driver as to why they object to the use of the name why did palm tiptoe around the real reason to give some lame reason that appears to target only the one party and not all parties who technically are in violation of the very reason stated for this one party to change the name?

I hope everyone doesn't think I'm some crackpot or something. I'm just rather sort of confused. I read one thing in the letter and see an opposite reaction here. Obviously not the only one though. I guess what I'm trying to uderstand palms position. Perhaps it wasn't them but their lawyers that mucked up the reasoning.

[ricktt3]

I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from . . . If you read the letter, you would see that the answer is in the passage that I quoted in an earlier post. Palm does not want the trademark name - Palm - used in the sdhc driver or the company developing it. Which is perfectly within their right. They are not tiptoeing, they are stating it outright in the letter. Besides, those other sites are not software developers.
Also, I think people are missing something here. Maybe it is irrelevant, maybe not. dmitry is not only writing a piece of software for Palm, but he is writing a driver that changes the way the Palm hardware works. Am I right? Any software like this has the potential to brick a PDA - as in "it don't work no more!" I bet dmitry says that you are using this driver at your own risk in his disclaimers. Why would Palm want their trademark used on something that they didn't develop? Easier, more logical, and probably less expensive to defend their trademark now than deal with the possible tech support calls later.

[Dick Tracy]

Put as simply as possible:

1. Dmitry is charging money for a product that has "Palm" in its name.

2. He does not have a license to use the word "Palm" in his product's name.

Whether purchasers brick their devices and then send them to Palm for warranty repair is secondary to the lack of license to use the "Palm" name.

[StoneRyno]

I think I'm understanding where people aren't confused like I am. This portion from the letter appears to be where people read the objection to be all about the drive which does make sense to me now as this is probably the real objection.


To that end Palm has asked me to contact you regarding your use of the website title "Palmpowerups" and the product name "PalmSDHC" in connection with your driver product.


But here is the remaining portion that is where I was making the point about the usage of "palm" and why it isn't making sense that others using "palm" aren't also asked to make name changes.


Palm is concerned that your use of the PALM trademark in the "Palmpowerups" website title and the "PalmSDHC" product name is likely to give customers and potential customers the erroneous impression that your company has a relationship with Palm or that the information and products provided on your site have been authorized for release or approved by Palm.


While this makes specific mention of the names to be changed for this developer if you read it without the "Palmpowerups" and "PalmSDHC" you get:

----------
Palm is concerned that your use of the PALM trademark in website titles and product names is likely to give customers and potential customers the erroneous impression that your company has a relationship with Palm or that the information and products provided on your site have been authorized for release or approved by Palm.
----------

And this is where we have what seems to be the heart of the matter in the way I understood the letter. To which I then understood this to be singling out one party rather than requesting all 3rd parties to change their names. Which is also why I said they were tiptoeing. By the reasoning of that statement any use of "palm" by a 3rd party fits the above. But if this really is about the driver(s) and the altering nature of the software from this developer then the letter should have contain the following in place of the statement about "likely to give customers and potential customers the erroneous impression".

----------
PALM is concerned that your use of the PALM trademark in your driver product is likely to give customers and potential customers the erroneous impression that your company has a relationship with Palm and that the driver product has been authorized or approved by palm.
----------

This would not have caused confusion and to thinking it is the use of the name itself rather than the specific product (the drivers) as to the subject of objection.

I hope this helps explain things. Did I come to a proper understanding of what they meant to say in my rewrite of the segment of their letter?

[harpgliss]

Hi,

StoneRyno, I do not think you are a crackpot.

I just think you are looking at things differently than others here.

Everybody brings a different perspective to a discussion.

Like I think this letter came at just the right time for Dmitry.

Just in time for him to gripe about his "mistreatment" and the "lack of gratitude" from Palm.

He has painted himself as the only developer who is supporting peoples pda's and this is not the case.

There are lots of developers in the Palm community that provide wonderful support for Palm users.

Dmitry is the modern day P.T. Barnum.

A ruthless self promoter who will do whatever it takes to make a buck.

Not really wrong I guess, but this whole thing is him crying wolf.

Even now, he is not even a participant in this thread and he is still getting the benefit of it.


David

[Clie Patra]

He (Dmitri) has painted himself as the only developer who is supporting peoples pda's and this is not the case.
Where did he paint himself that way?

Dmitry is the modern day P.T. Barnum. A ruthless self promoter who will do whatever it takes to make a buck.

That is SO unfair. Dmitri has a lot of freeware on his site...

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Clie Patra, a better question would be, where has he not?

For your second part, A dealer always gives you a taste for free.

If you had read all of my post, you would have caught this part.

Everybody brings a different perspective to a discussion.

David

[Silly Rabbit]

Put as simply as possible:

1. Dmitry is charging money for a product that has "Palm" in its name.

2. He does not have a license to use the word "Palm" in his product's name.

Whether purchasers brick their devices and then send them to Palm for warranty repair is secondary to the lack of license to use the "Palm" name.

What she said. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), Dmitry has chosen to react in a Rambo-esque fashion, rather than a mature fashion. ("Recently I received a letter from Palm Inc's militarist arm..." and encouraging others to complain to Palm.) Hopefully, by the time Dmitry gets out of school, he will have honed his bedside manner... He is talented, but out in the real world, he will need to refine his people skills if he hopes to get very far.

[dmitrygr]

*sigh*


I was on vacation all weekend and so couldn't respond here
The response was meant to be humorous, and besides 2 or 3 people here who seem to have a personal dislike of me everyone seemed to get it (those 2-3 people should go get some sense of humor, then come back and apologize)
Accusing me of "crying wolf" is just plain stupid. MY response was completely true, and in no way a lie.
harpgliss: not sure what you hate me for so much, but seriously....chill...when I want to be insulted and yelled at, I go to my family, and since you're not part of it, I advise you to be polite. Feel free to hate me in private, I dont want to see or hear any of it since I deserve none of it
Silly Rabbit - I AM out of school and do not worry about me and the real world. I've done contract work for huge companies, I work at a big one now, I have plenty of friends and a few girlfriends. That is to say the world and I get along fine. Thanks for the concern.



Geez...what a way to ruin my day...thanks guys

[robitaille88]

*sigh*


I was on vacation all weekend and so couldn't respond here
The response was meant to be humorous, and besides 2 or 3 people here who seem to have a personal dislike of me everyone seemed to get it (those 2-3 people should go get some sense of humor, then come back and apologize)
Accusing me of "crying wolf" is just plain stupid. MY response was completely true, and in no way a lie.
harpgliss: not sure what you hate me for so much, but seriously....chill...when I want to be insulted and yelled at, I go to my family, and since you're not part of it, I advise you to be polite. Feel free to hate me in private, I dont want to see or hear any of it since I deserve none of it
Silly Rabbit - I AM out of school and do not worry about me and the real world. I've done contract work for huge companies, I work at a big one now, I have plenty of friends and a few girlfriends. That is to say the world and I get along fine. Thanks for the concern.



Geez...what a way to ruin my day...thanks guys
Aww, Dmitry, most of us @ 1src still love ya

[potter]

Has palminfocenter, freewarepalm, palmblvd, palmopensource, etc been asked to change their names so they aren't mistaken as part of palm?
Around 2000 Palm went through a round of sending out such letters to various "Palm" sites. Assuming I remember correctly, after much bad PR and back and forth of what they were requesting, fan sites were allowed to license the use of the trademark for free provided they included a proper disclaimers.

From PalmInfocenter:

PalmInfocenter.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by Palm Inc, Access or PalmSource in any way.
Any use of the word Palm is for discussion purposes and is a registered trademark of Palm Inc.
Unauthorized reproduction of content is strictly forbidden.
© MobileInfocenter.com, all rights reserved.
From FreewarePalm:

Copyright © FreewarePalm.com, 2000. All Rights Reserved.
FreewarePalm.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by Palm, Inc., palmOne or PalmSource in any way.
Any use of the word Palm is for discussion purposes and is a registered trademark of Palm, Inc.
From PalmOpenSource:

All pages are copyrighted under the GNU GPL. Copyright © 2000 Ludovic Drolez. Any other Trademarks used in the Site are trademarks of their respective owners. Palmopensource.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by Palm Inc, palmOne or PalmSource in any way. Any use of the word Palm is for discussion purposes and is a registered trademark of Palm Inc.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

No hate here, I save that emotion for those who may have an effect on my life.

That is not meant as A shot, just a fact.

I just have a general dislike of the way you conduct your business.

As for hate, you need to chill in your hatred of Palm, or are they part of your family?

I know, you do not hate them, read your posts regarding Palm and you get a different perspective.

You use their technology as a basis for making money and then trash them unmercifully at the same time.

Not a proper way to conduct business.


David

[dmitrygr]

My criticism of Palm is ALWAYS founded AND I provide CITATIONS and CODE to show for it. Unlike your criticism of me, for example, every bad thing of them I say is followed by proof.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

I have read your criticisms ad nauseum and it borders on vendetta.

I have said my piece and feel comfortable with what I have posted here.

Have A nice day.


David

[ricktt3]

My criticism of Palm is ALWAYS founded AND I provide CITATIONS and CODE to show for it. Unlike your criticism of me, for example, every bad thing of them I say is followed by proof.

So your reasons for writing all of this (http://www.plmpowerups.com/PalmPowerups.php) were well founded?

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Totally off topic here.

Ricktt3, "Location: Port of Indecision".

I like that.

David

[RolfY]

I think this discussion is getting personal, and that is not in the interest of this discussion. I agree Dmitry's responce is sarcastic, but i can understand his point of view because i think he is trying to make the palmos better and trying to share that with palm. There is little response from plam besides a letter to change the name of his work. I dont's argue with the letter, but i think it's a little strange to do this after a lot of time with a dying os (the only palm with currently sells and he supports is the TX). And we don't argue the fact that plam is not very supportive on old models.
Just my point of view, and it gives me as an european an interesting insite on this subject.

[StoneRyno]

Around 2000 Palm went through a round of sending out such letters to various "Palm" sites. Assuming I remember correctly, after much bad PR and back and forth of what they were requesting, fan sites were allowed to license the use of the trademark for free provided they included a proper disclaimers.

I was not aware of that. And seeing the provided disclaimer use for the other 3rd parties is enough proof to me that palm has indeed objected to the use of the names and an agreement reached between those other 3rd parties and palm as to a proper course of action to be taken to prevent the reason they gave for wanting the names changed. I therefore retract my statements I said I would retract upon finding this out. I also didn't realize the response to palm had a bit of sarcasm in it. I thought he was upset with palm for their request.

[madmaxmedia]

Put as simply as possible:

1. Dmitry is charging money for a product that has "Palm" in its name.

2. He does not have a license to use the word "Palm" in his product's name.

Whether purchasers brick their devices and then send them to Palm for warranty repair is secondary to the lack of license to use the "Palm" name.

I sympathize with Dmitry, but I think Dick Tracy's comments are pretty apt.

I think trademark holders additionally have a responsibility for protecting their trademark, lest that trademark fall into public domain. However, it's not all black and white either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_trademark_rights

Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. These rights will cease if a mark is not actively used for a period of time, normally 5 years in most jurisdictions. In the case of a trademark registration, failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to become liable for an application for the removal from the register after a certain period of time on the grounds of "non-use". It is not necessary for a trademark owner to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential. This is designed to prevent owners from continually being tied up in litigation for fear of cancellation.

Palm probably consulted with their lawyers regarding the user sites, and determined a solution that would protect their trademark and let these sites use the Palm name. The same lawyers may have decided that 3rd party software companies with 'Palm' in their name would not be seen as 'minor and inconsequential.'

[robitaille88]

I'd like to point out this matter is closed. Dmitry got his website name back

[lordbobjones]

Reminds me of Atari corp in their last throws of life sueing nintendo and sega for patent violations.... If Palm spent their time working to produce more updated and customer pleasing PDA's rather than worrying about this kind of crap, they would probably be more successful. Jeezzz...

The last spasms of an outdated and dying company!