This discussion happens over and over again. And I imagine it will continue, although it is a specious attempt at link baiting or just ignorance on part of the author.

You cannot use another trademark and then try the "I'm the undedog defense."

I can't think of any other sites for other platforms or applications that contain the name of the platform or application in their domain or site title.

I mean, are there any known Twitter apps, services, or sites that make use of the Twitter name? Or even any template or macro sites for MS Office? I can't think of any.

"air" alone is NO trademark of Adobe

So they should shut up.

The purpose of trademark law is to prevent consumer confusion about brands and the companies behind them.

As long as the site did not imply that it was associated with Adobe (or better yet - if it included a statement noting there was no relationship) then it would be totally in the clear.

It's only when there is the potential for confusion about the source of the services offered does trademark protection apply.

Adobe should have simply asked the developer to put a "not affiliated with Adobe" message in his footer and be done with it.

How many web sites devoted to the Windows and OS/X platforms are out there that use one of these 'trademarks' in their domain name? Thousands, if not tens of thousands.

Adobe is being a scumbag bully. So much for openness!

this is ridiculous! I wonder whats going to happen with those domains:

AIRamerica.com
AIR-style.com
AIR-worldwide.com
AIRfrance.com

(there are thousands of these...)

Thanks for the background, Bjorn. That's indeed the general situation I see inside Adobe, too.

Legal communication styles haven't quite caught up with the 21st century yet... it'd be great if they kept their own blog, making public the original requests and responding to feedback. Sometimes they're surprised by how snippets of their communications appear, when presented in public forums like this. I haven't seen many legal groups work at so public a level yet, though.

But James added that he was already in private contact with other Adobe staffers... let's let that other conversation develop first.

jd/adobe

Are you serious, Mike? Did you just get Internet access last week?

Every apple fan site has apple or mac in the name. Try appleinsider.com and macrumors.com. PalmGear for Palm apps. Tons of independent Windows domain names exist (WindowsUsers.org for one)

Facebook101.com is a facebook application directory.

Even Adobe lets sites with flash (flashadvisor.com) and photoshop (planetphotoshop.com) in the name slide. Although I might be a little worried if I owned those sites now that adobe has shown how it feels about enthusiasts of their products.

Try some basic research before making stupid claims, Mike It took five minutes with google for me to find those simple examples (there are TONS MORE for every platform in existence, I assure you)

Now, I won't bother. At all.

Anyone would think they were trying to get in to bed with Apple.

I just lost a LOT of respect for Adobe.

Adobe your being stupid.

The Masked Millionaire

Look into the Digg trademark stuff from a while back - Kevin Rose at one point in time gave a very good reason/explanation behind why they had to do something about other sites using "Digg" in their site/app names....

If I have ABC as a trademark, and you make a site named AllAboutABC.com, it infringes on my trademark because it *may* cause confusion in the marketplace. That's why this is happening.

That said, I would rather have Adobe privately contact the infringer and come to some agreement and then publicly blog about it, describing the situation instead of just going after the person legally...

"Digg" is a specific made-up word. "Air" is the air.

Maybe Adobe should have made up a different word, or called it "Aire" or something. Of course, I'm sure they'll claim the "ALL CAPS" makes it a "different" word.

If Adobe is so perturbed about this, why don't they just buy the guy out?

http://www.adobeair.com/

Two companies can trademark the same name - even an acronym - as long as they have at least one difference about them. AdobeAir air conditioning units and Adobe AIR application are two different entities entirely. So they can share the same name - it just depends if the trademark are the same type of product or not. FreshAirApps is no trademark infringement of Adobe AIR. Adobe has not trademarked "AIR". Only Adobe AIR.

Kudos for the FreshAirApps site getting this free publicity. Shame on Adobe for trying to do what is not legally correct. They would lose in court on this one.

People writing about AIR can quite easily promote other RIA platforms on their sites just by registering a version of their domain with RIA in it instead of AIR.

He could change his domain name to freshRIAapps and not just focus solely on adobe air RIAs.

OK so he's monitised his site and is making a bit of money off the back of AIR, but he's also spreading the download of the AIR runtime and getting other developers on board.

There are probably very few people at Adobe that back this decision.

"which is a shame as" they have done so much since buying macromedia.

There are alternatives that are free and that you wont get trademark reamed for (Mozilla XUL anyone), so Adobe better wise up and support its users or they will move the the free (as in speech) alternatives.

Come on. Isn't this a really hard assault on free speech? What if I had a site "IhateAIR.com"?

Come on.

I currently use Adobe CS3 for MAC & Windows on several machines. I also have several licenses of Flex Builder 3. Because of Adobes lack of compassion for the little guy "PROMOTING THEIR RUNTIME", instead of say "SILVERLIGHT" leaves a VERY bad taste in my mouth. So much that I might strongly, STRONGLY consider ditching ADOBE CS3 and Flex Builder3 for Microsofts Expression Suite...

I believe this action will result in companies gladly allowing little guys to promote their products, runtimes, etc...

SORRY ADOBE YOU ARE GONE!!!

JT

I haven't respected any Adobe code in over a decade, their apps are the slowest, most resource-abusive mountains of glut in the industry. I *ignored* Adobe AIR based on this prejudice, and now with this nonsense, they've confirmed I made the right decision.

Anyone can also send a cease and desist letter to someone they claim is infringing on that trademark, but until it goes to court and a judge decides on it, then the legal grounds are unknown. Research what happened when Microsoft went after Lindows for violating their trademark on Windows.

Adobe needs to get a clue. Their software is terribly engineered. Compare their PDF reader to any of the competition and you'll see what I mean.

Adobe doesn't rely on quality software or technology to build its company, it relies on marketing and bully tactics like this.

Firstly, this practice of naming sites is extremely common and no one has lost a trademark due to it yet. As mentioned by posters above, Adobe has many fan-run review and tutorial sites for other products in this same situation. There's no way to put AIR(R) into the domain name, so doing it prominantly on the page should be enough.

Secondly, it's not dilution of the name because it's representing the name correctly as an Adobe product and not claiming to be something it's not. It's like saying that my shoe store can't advertise that we carry Nike. I'm not claiming to be a Nike-owned store.

Thirdly, AIR is a platform. It's not even really a product. The applications which are promoted are the products. AIR is the platform on which they're developed. Anyone who goes to that site understands it clearly. Sun wouldn't be afraid of fresh-java-apps.com.

Despite these and many other good reasons why Adobe is in the wrong, they continue to trot out the tired excuse of "defend our trademark." Guess what? Selectively defending it gets you nothing, Abode, but you knew that and are just using it as an excuse for some other agenda you have. I won't even speculate what that might be.

Oh shit, once again I have committed a trademark offence...

At the end of that conversation I was just making a point they could sue but why, the coverage and exposure has been excellent for twitter because of all the people making apps that tie in to them.

This was definitely the lawyers doing, and no understanding of the online world, except how much $$$$ they can make by bringing up charges like this. Guess what adobe? Your outside law firm just found a great way to create a new revenue stream, these lawsuits will make some law firm rich as we all know.

boooooo Adobe.

http://www.actionscript.com/Article/tabid/54/ArticleID/Click-to-activate-and-use-this-control/Default.aspx

http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/04/21/flashobject-to-become-swfobject/

http://www.jeffryhouser.com/index.cfm/2006/4/21/Adobe-to-make-a-legal-Snafu

http://www.adobeair.com/aboutUs.html

This looks like a case where Adobe's showcase was failing and Freshairapps was wiping the floor with them. that person got pissy, made a stink, and notified legal.

If Adobe goes after Freshairapps, then it should go after all sites that include any of their trademarks - that's the only fair thing to do. Why do some get a pass and not others? Now granted, we don't know if Adobe has and the domain owner has a license from Adobe to use it, but the majority that exist probably don't.

It seems to me that if you have a domain with their trademark in it, and you generally talk about THAT product (or any of their products), then you're in trouble.

I could possibly see how the AIR in Freshairapps looks like the AIR logo and maybe that's why. But what if it was just called Freshair.com, (I know it's an AC product - just using it as an example) and you discussed the AIR platform, would that be a case for trademark infringement? What if I was a FlashGuru and discussed Flash?

Now, I know you have to defend your trademarks. I see that and understand it. Yet, what makes this case different then all the other domains? If you go after one - go after them all.

I think having an explicit explanation as to why Freshairapps was targeted would put a lot of this discussion to rest. Adobe is scaring the marketplace.

Microsoft has a product called Expression Studio, and a partner who is a good writer (even wrote a book about it for Microsoft press owns a domain called "learnexpression.com" and you don't see Microsoft legal going after him, I suspect they even appreciate the guy's work..

Considering the free exposure "fresh air" was giving this application platform this just goes to show you how unreasonable corporations can be. It amazed me with other companies such as Nike using the word "AIR" for branding that Adobe feels they even have grounds to make such claims against the guy anyway.

just my two cents.. There are more than a few "employees" of that company writing their own personal opinions already here..

I used to do a lot of work with Macromedia Tools. When Adobe took over I moved away from doing work using their tools for just reasons like this..

In a similar experience, I recently had to change the semantic flash ( www.semanticflash.org ) community logo because it contained the "f" from the flash logo.

You can see the logos here...
http://blog.aldobucchi.com/2008/07/semantic-flash-has-new-logo.html

Peace,
A

( LOL!!! http://www.adobeair.com/ )

See this guy's blog:

http://blogs.ucompass.com/emansouri@ucompass.com

I'd say he has a bit of a right to be bitter?