I’ve gotten an unusually strong reaction to a TechKnowledge piece that went out today describing how the Nordstrom retail chain is capitalizing on a Patent and Trademark Office error to throw a small business under the bus.
Beckons is an organic yoga and lifestyle clothing business that Nordstrom is trying to force off of a trademark – or out of business. It’s owned by two businesswomen in Colorado who have done everything right to get a trademark, but now may have tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills to defend it. The short article is called U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: FAIL.
I wrote about it because I think it’s an outrage. People have written to me since I published it asking what they can do.
Well, there are a couple of things. The original error is with the PTO, so you can send a copy of the story or a link to your Member of Congress. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is within the jurisdiciation of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
But it’s Nordstrom that has really taken advantage of things. And you don’t have to beg for a politician’s help to bring companies to heel. Here’s a four-step plan for helping Beckons beat Goliath. Do one or all of the items listed below.
- Send this page to all your friends. That’s probably the most important thing, because the more people doing the other things on this list, the better.
- Write a letter to Nordstrom, telling them that you disapprove of their abuse of the trademark process, and that you won’t be shopping there until they mend their ways. Here’s the address for the president of the company.
Blake W. Nordstrom, President
Nordstrom, Inc.
1700 Seventh Avenue, Suite 300
Seattle, WA 98101
- Print this page, copy it, and hand it out at Nordstrom. Or slip copies into the purses they sell – especially any with the “Beckon” label!
- If you do yoga, or know anybody who does, shop at Beckons! (Be sure to send this along to friends who do yoga.)
So those are just a few ideas for getting Nordstrom to correct its abuse of the trademark process against this small business. Please feel free to put additional ideas or report on your successes in the comments. (Got a sample letter to Nordstrom, for example?)
A well-functioning marketplace requires assertive consumers – so assert yourself!
In discussions about data-intensive government programs like watchlists, people often talk about the importance of “redress” – giving the public some way to correct information or dispute adverse decisions arising from these programs.
“Redress” is a misnomer that diminishes the importance of the subject at hand. Constitutional Due Process is what’s at stake. So says the Ninth Circuit in the case of Humphries v. County of Los Angeles.
Eric Goldman is the man. His “Technology & Marketing Law Blog” is must-reading for cyberlaw geeks; packed with indispensable updates and insights about breaking development in the world of Internet law.
Anyway, he’s just published his “2008 Cyberlaw Year-in-Review,” which provides a comprehensive overview of the major developments and cases from the past year. This is the sort of compendium that I used to have to spend big bucks to get from DC law firms. And Eric just gives it away as a public resource. God bless him.
I’ve been hammering Jonathan Zittrain pretty hard here over the past year for the thesis he sets forth in The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It that digital “generativity” is at risk today. The reason I have been doing so is because all signs point in the exact opposite direction, and more so with each passing day. Contrary to Jonathan’s fear that the Internet and digital technologies are growing more closed, tethered, and sterile, I have argued that the facts on the ground show us how the world is actually becoming far more open, untethered, and innovative. And that’s true even for the technology that Jonathan singles out in the book for special scorn — the iPhone.
Consider David Pogue’s post today on the
New York Times‘ technology blog today entitled “So Many iPhone Apps, So Little Time.” Pogue reports that:
there are now 15,000 programs available on the App Store, and so many more are flooding in that Apple’s army of screeners can’t even keep up. I keep meaning to write a thoughtful, thorough roundup of the very best of these amazing programs, but every day that I don’t do it, the job becomes more daunting.
[…]
Apple, which runs the store, keeps 30 percent of each sale. Even so, Ocarina [an application Pogue discusses in his essay] demonstrates that a programmer can make a staggering amount of money from the iPhone store. It’s a crazy new software model that I don’t remember seeing anywhere else. It’s not a boxed software program for $600, or even a shareware program you download for $25. It’s a buck a copy.
The beauty here is that at these prices, there’s very little risk in trying something out. How many software programs have you bought for your Mac or PC? Two? Four? Well, the average iPhone owner may wind up installing 10, 20 or 30 programs. In all, according to Apple, iPhone owners have downloaded 500 million copies of these programs. Half a billion–since last July.
There’s a lot of gloom in the tech industry (and every industry, for that matter). But even when the economy is crashing down around us, there’s still amazing power in a single good idea. And the one on display here–pricing software so low that millions of people buy it without batting an eye–is turning a few clever programmers into millionaires.
I ask you: Does this sound like a world that is growing less generative, as Zittrain argues? Because it sure doesn’t sound like it to me. Moreover, if you still don’t think the iPhone is open enough, then there’s always a simple solution to that: just buy another phone!
Yesterday I testified before the Maryland General Assembly to oppose HB 114. It’s a bad bill for consumers and online companies, and another iteration of the continuing war that traditional retailers have waged against e-commerce for the past few years. Last year NetChoice testified before Congress to oppose legislation that would would give retailers the power to force online marketplaces to interrogate their own customers about how they obtained items listed for sale.
HB 114 would require Maryland businesses and residents selling cosmetics, medicines, baby food and infant formula via an Internet auctions to notify the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene at least seven days prior to the auction. The bill applies only to sales using Internet auctions, not fixed-price format, and not newspaper classified ads. That right there makes you wonder.
The bill has been introduced under the theory of product safety. Safeway, Target, and the state retailers association all trumped up the dangers of selling baby food and infant formula online without citing any sort of actual harm. Or at least harm that is disproportionate to what exists at the physical store retail level.
There was also a lot of desperate hyperbole. A representative from Mars supermarkets (a Maryland chain) asserted that Internet auctions fund heroin addiction! Yes, testifying before state legislatures can be fun!
When you have bill proponents demonizing the Internet, it’s easy to see that the bill is about
competition prevention. Namely, to prevent Internet auction sites from benefiting Maryland consumers and helping businesses compete with traditional retailers in the sale of food and drug items.
Getting back to the window dressing of public health, Continue reading →
As I am getting ready to watch the Super Bowl tonight on my amazing 100-inch screen via a Sanyo high-def projector that only cost me $1,600 bucks on eBay, I started thinking back about how much things have evolved (technologically-speaking) over just the past decade. I thought to myself, what sort of technology did I have at my disposal exactly 10 years ago today, on February 1st, 1999? Here’s the miserable snapshot I came up with:
- 10 years ago today, I did not own a high-definition television set, as they were too expensive (I bought my first one from Sears on an installment plan a few months later. It was a boxy 42-inch, 4×3 monstrosity that rolled around on the floor on casters and it took up half the room). Moreover, only a few HDTV signals could be picked up locally and none were yet available from my cable or satellite provider.
- 10 years ago today, the biggest television in my house was a 32-inch 4×3 ProScan analog set, which I thought was massive. (Of course, it was in terms of weight. It was over 125 lbs).
- 10 years ago today, I was still using a dial-up, 56k narrowband Internet connection even though I lived in downtown Washington, DC just 6 blocks from our nation’s Capitol.
- 10 years ago today, my computer was a Compaq laptop that weighed more than my dog, had barely any storage or RAM, and had a screen that was only slightly brighter than an Etch-A-Sketch.
- 10 years ago today, I was still occasionally using an old CompuServe e-mail address that had nine digits in it. (But at least I wasn’t one of the 20 million or so people paying $20 bucks per month to graze around inside AOL’s walled garden!)
- 10 years ago today, I was still backing up files on 3 1/2 inch floppy disks. I had boxes full of those things. (And, sadly, I still had 5 1/4 inch floppies in my possession that I was saving “just in case” I ever needed those old files. Pathetic!)
Continue reading →
Jason Kuznicki of the Cato Institute is asking some very sharp questions about Jonathan Zittrain’s book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop. He’s echoing a lot of the same concerns and criticisms I have raised here many times before about how overblown Zittrain’s fears are regarding the supposed death of digital generativity and online openness. Kuznicki argues:
First, the example he uses is far from perfect. The Internet abounds with descriptions of iPhone hacks, many of them well-documented and remarkably successful. The menacing control exists, but it’s often a paper tiger. And although Apple didn’t originally publish an iPhone software development kit, it does now. So which one is it? Is the iPhone still not hacky enough? Or should we find another, better example? But the hacking community delights in finding supposedly uncrackable devices, and in cracking them — often within days of release. Offhand, I can’t think of a single recently released Internet-enabled device that someone hasn’t hacked. (Another of Zittrain’s purported bad examples, the Xbox 360, supports an avid hacking community, albeit with far less support from Microsoft. It isn’t a community for everyone, but then, hacking isn’t for everyone. Neither is macrame.)
Continue reading →
When the history books are finally written, I think it’s clear that outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will likely go down as one of — if not the — most aggressively pro-regulatory Republican chairman in the agency’s history. Despite his occasional claims of believing in free markets and his support for a couple of legitimately deregulatory decisions, his tenure at the FCC has generally been characterized by a growth of government power, spending, and bureaucracy. But don’t take my word for it; read the report he issued last week called “Moving Forward,” which to some of us looks more like moving backwards (or at least stuck in the same ol’ mud).
Martin, however, touts his regulatory actions and expansion of FCC power as uniformly pro-consumer. Martin is just another in the long line of statists who claims that consumer welfare can only be enhanced by adding layers of government mandates and regulatory red tape. History teaches us a different lesson: That regulation and bureaucracy typically stifle innovation and competition and hurt consumer welfare in the process. Moreover, there are some constitutional considerations and limitations that should trump — or at least limit — the powers of unelected bureaucrats to run roughshod over our rights. But hey, who cares about those meddlesome little things like the First, Fifth, Tenth, or Fourteenth Amendments?! Certainly not Kevin Martin.
What’s equally troubling about Martin’s tenure at the agency is the track record of mismanagement and the bad blood that seemingly surrounds everything and everyone he comes in contact with. The picture painted in the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s 110-page report, “Deception and Distrust: The FCC Under Chairman Kevin J.Martin,” is not a pretty one — although the report failed to mention that waste, mismanagement, and other regulatory shenanigans have been going on at this agency under the days of Democratic rule, too.
Martin’s response to the House report was all too predictable: The evil corporate interests are out to get me! “[M]ost of the criticisms contained in the Majority Staff Report,” Martin says in a letter released a few days ago, “reflect the vehement opposition of the cable and wireless industries to my policies to serve and protect consumers.”
Whatever.
I’m just glad this nightmare is over. Hopefully Martin’s tenure will serve as a cautionary tale for a future Republican administration: If you actually believe in free minds and free markets, try vetting the guy you install at the FCC to make sure he’s a true believer as well.
FWIW… Just upgraded — at no cost — to Verizon’s 20/5 FIOS plan. Been hitting almost 25 megs pretty consistently today. I was on Verizon’s 10/2 plan beforehand and the 5/2 plan before that. Didn’t notice as much of a difference when I moved from 5 to 10, but jump to 20 is definitely noticeable on big file downloads.
Cox Cable has also been offering nice speed boosts in my neighborhood (McLean, VA) recently, so I suspect that’s why I was offered the free upgrade yesterday when I called Verizon about adding some new HD channels to my FIOS TV package.
Clearly, something must be done to counter the evil corporate cabal known as “the Cloud Elders” and the “Knights Doppler” who are behind the blatant pro-weather bias displayed daily on the Weather Channel. Perhaps a Fairness Doctrine for Weather Reporting?
Thank God the hard-working folks at Fairness in Media unearthed this vicious anti-democratic conspiracy.
Weather Channel Accused of Pro-Weather Bias
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.