Analysis - Should German lawyers be able to tell UK media what to write?

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Lawyers for German company Smartbook AG have written to HEXUS, telling us not to use the term smartbook.

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Read more.

Hell no!

Maybe for any product other than those produced by companies with over-zealous and litigious lawyers, German or otherwise, you ought to coin the term "smarterbook", and simply refuse any mention of <censored>, or <censored AG> and its products, entirely. Perhaps even add an annotation that you'd like to use the term <censored> instead of smarterbook, but <censored AG>'s lawyers object, in any relevant article.

I wonder how <censored AG> would feel if the press refused to cover their products at all. No publicity, no advertising, no reviews, no publication of press releases??

Doesn't sound like they've got much of a case to be honest. I would respond in a manner reminiscent of Arkell v. Pressdram if I were you.

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Originally Posted by Singh400

Hell no!

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What he said ^^

tell them to ring your lawyer on 0121 - do one .....

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Originally Posted by Barkotron

Doesn't sound like they've got much of a case to be honest. I would respond in a manner reminiscent of Arkell v. Pressdram if I were you.

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Tempting, I'd suspect, but it depends if HEXUS want to risk picking a legal fight that could be expensive. The law works for those with the deepest pockets, and legal pressure is easy to exert if you can out-lawyer the other guy. It's not a very palatable notion, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. So if you choose to pick a legal fight you can't afford to fight, or don't want to afford to fight, you're on a hiding to nothing. Besides, there are more subtle ways of dealing with this.

Tell them to p*ss off, register off words shouldnt be allowed. Its a language not a bunch of trade marks!

They're just chancing their arm, hoping foreign organisations will play into ignorance. They know fine rightly that German law, patents, and copyrights are completely inapplicable to other nation states.

This kind of plainly dishonest legal strong-arming should be severely punishable. It'd certainly put an end to frivolous cease and desist letters.

nein!!

The doors bolted on this one as the term "smartbook" is well used across the board now for a while just like the term 'netbook' and 'notebook' :)

If you don't want Smartbook AG to get away with silencing the media, make sure you Digg this!

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Originally Posted by Saracen

Besides, there are more subtle ways of dealing with this.

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Exactly! Remind them who won the bloody war, and tell them that having withstood the worst the Luftwaffe could throw at us, we'll do as we jolly well please thank you very much. :)

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..."

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Originally Posted by aidanjt

They're just chancing their arm, hoping foreign organisations will play into ignorance. They know fine rightly that German law, patents, and copyrights are completely inapplicable to other nation states.

This kind of plainly dishonest legal strong-arming should be severely punishable. It'd certainly put an end to frivolous cease and desist letters.

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A lot depends on exactly what the letter said, or asserted. If they assert that a German TRO applies here, that's one thing. If they assert that they will take the matter before UK courts, it's entirely another, and they could well do exactly that.

And, until it goes before a UK court, there's no way to know if they have a case or not, because only the court can answer that. Perhaps they have a case that, whether it defies logic or not, might have a legal basis. Nobody ever said that the law always made sense. Unless you know what they intend, and the law on that issue, we don't know if it's frivolous or not because, by and large, the law is whatever you can convince a court to say it is, until such time as a senior court says it isn't, or Parliament changes the law.

I don't like it any more than anyone else else, and however much it might smell like the digestive product of a bull, you won't know that until a court decides. If you call a bluff, it might turn out not to have been a bluff.

Who actually uses the term anyway?

Admittedly I flicked through that article, and I can't help but feel that I've missed something? I don;t follow how the German lawyers can interject in any way shape or form if there is no trademarked or copyrighted name here. I must profess that I don't understand international law though.

Surely this runs in a similar vein to Apple and their i-XXX universe?

Also, surely they should check out the difference between a noun and a proper noun?

I wouldn't mind, the the words that they are trying to block are not even GERMAN words as far as I can ascertain.....

Have I gone up te wrong tree?:stupid:

tell them that no-one gives a ****

they should be happy that the name is being used like hoover or walkman

and make sure you point out that we won the war, call them nazis and all that other racist stereotype stuff whilst your at it

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Originally Posted by Tattysnuc

Surely this runs in a similar vein to Apple and their i-XXX universe?

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They've started doing porno now?

eeegads, where will they stop!!!