Adobe Gets Sensitive About "AIR" Trademark
Two months ago we reviewed a neat Adobe AIR app directory called FreshAirapps. FreshAIRapps looked to be the premier destination for debuting Adobe AIR applications. Two months later and the creator, James Whittaker, is under fire by the very company he's freely promoted.
Adobe Goes After the Little Guy
As of this posting, if you head to the FreshAirapps site you'll see a note from James Whittaker noting that Whittaker's usage of the word "AIR" in his domain name poses a problem with Adobe. No matter how obscure this may seem, rules are rules and Adobe explicitly states the following in its list of trademarks:
"Adobe® AIR™" is a trademark of Adobe that may not be used by others except under a written license from Adobe. You may not incorporate the Adobe AIR trademark, or any other Adobe trademark, in whole or in part, in the title of your Developer Application or in your company name, domain name or the name of a service related to Adobe AIR."
Is Adobe Just Being a Bully?
Is Adobe jealous of the publicity and potential that FreshAIRapps has compared to its own directory for AIR apps? It shouldn't be. If you were to do a search on Google for "adobe AIR apps", FreshAIRapps isn't even on the first page. On the other hand, there are several reasons why I'd visit FreshAIRapps over Adobe's AIR showcase. For one, I like FreshAIRapps site design better. It's cleaner and more refreshing for me. Two, there are reviews from both a technical and user perspective about each app. This keeps me from having to download apps just to find out whether or not they'd be worth my time.
Whittaker ends the note with his reasons for starting FreshAIRapps in the first place, while expressing his disappointment in Adobe:
I have been in communication with members of the Adobe evangelist team who truly believe that I am helping the community and promoting the use of the AIR runtime and subsequent applications built on the platform. I started this site because I have a genuine interest in AIR and other Adobe technologies.
I feel that Adobe has let me and the community down by trying to block sites that appear to challenge their marketplace, even though none of the apps featured on this site are hosted by me.
Is Adobe in the Wrong?
In the end, FreshAIRapps is free publicity for Adobe and they're going after the wrong guy. This isn't the first incident where big companies hit the supporters of their products with take-down notices or anything similar. In this case, FreshAIRapps doesn't even host the applications. Whittaker simply reviewed and promoted the apps, something numerous sites already do. Yet, Adobe blames the problem on the "AIR" trademark that's registered in the domain name. This all seems ridiculous at the end of the day. With a new domain name and a sour after-taste, is Adobe in the wrong here?
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Companies are legally obligated to defend their trademarks or they lose them. It is not a matter of them being a bad guy. They have to actively defend it, they cannot allow anyone to use the name or else others will do it too and Adobe will lose the trademark/name.
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 see that he has a genuine interest in promoting Air as a platform and has no intention of being malicious with his site, but I have to agree with Adobe on this one. A company has to protect its trademark, even if it means being perceived as a bully to the little guy.
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.
"Adobe® AIR™" is a trademark
"air" alone is NO trademark of Adobe
So they should shut up.
There are lots of domain names with google in them and google is fine about it. This story is a really bad publicity for Adobe.
The first two commenters have no idea what they are talking about.
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!
So Adobe claims the word AIR as a trademark???
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...)
"Companies are legally obligated to defend their trademarks or they lose them. It is not a matter of them being a bad guy. They have to actively defend it, they cannot allow anyone to use the name or else others will do it too and Adobe will lose the trademark/name."
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
"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."
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)
How uttairly ridairculous! I had got hold of podcastair.com to promote a podcasting tool built with AIR.
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.
I'm sure it was the lawyers.
Adobe your being stupid.
The Masked Millionaire
Wow, there is no way they have 'AIR' trademarked is there?
This is another case of a "trademark" being registered by a company that really has no right to register it in the first place. Several other companies and their products have the word "AIR" in it that have been around far longer that Adobe and have traded under those names globally for longer as well. This is more a case of trademark registrars and lawyers taking money for services that they really aren't entitled to.
I'm really surprised RWW bloggers don't understand that this action is REQUIRED to keep your trademark.
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...
I always enjoy the "trademark" apologists.
"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?
It was only a matter of time before somebody patented air; so now what are we going to breath?
@Bjorn
Can they issue some sort of permission to use the trademark?
We went through this with Java too. It is time to change the law so the companies can say "it is OK for you to use that domain" without giving up rights. FreshAirApps though.... seems ok. Not AdobeAirApps
Posted by: Dion Almaer
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July 7, 2008 12:21 AM
Are Adobe going to sue the French band Air? It sounds like serious copyright infringement to me; no matter they were using this name first
Adobe is shooting itself in the foot with this move. They are being ripped by their greedy lawyers. How stupid!!!
Hmm, a quick search for Photoshop turns up a bunch of sites that have Photoshop in the domain name. Hypocrites....
When I think of "air" I think of Nike Air. As in Air Jordans. Shouldn't Nike be shutting down Adobe Air?
Hahaha Adobe cool off!
http://www.adobeair.com/
One problem with all the responders up there that claim Adobe "had" to do this to protect their tradename....
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.
What about FlashGuru.co.uk? Why doesn't Adobe go after him? Or Flashmagazine? Or any other website associated with Flash, Flex, Coldfusion, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc...
Following Adobe's logic, Nike should be suing Adobe for using all or part of it's Nike AIR trademark for its sneakers.
Posted by: Michael Tefft
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July 7, 2008 7:48 AM
Agreed Michael. Adobe is more than likely biting off more than it can chew with this one.
Posted by: Blake Robinson
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July 7, 2008 7:53 AM
This will backfire on Adobe which is a shame as .
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.
Woops
"which is a shame as" they have done so much since buying macromedia.
That's almost as dumb as if Microsoft tried to trademark Windows... oh... um...
Posted by: Aaron B. Hockley
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July 7, 2008 8:02 AM
WTF! Pinging a contact at Adobe to find out what's up.
Posted by: Steve Allen
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July 7, 2008 8:08 AM
Rediculous. Domain names are not brand names, and if the purpose of what you're doing is to review a brand or to review products that target a brand, then there is no violation of trademark laws. It would be different if this guy was SELLING his own software under this domain name, but it doesn't sound like that's what he's doing.
Let us know what you find out, Steve! The trademark, if you look it up at the US Gov's trademark website, will show that it's "Adobe AIR", not AIR.
The English words "air", "tide", "dash" and "play" are all patented, copyrighted, all-rights-reserved properties of their respective corporations. Get with the program and voluntarily send them their legally entitled licensing fees every time you say those words out loud. Thank you.
maybe they should rename it something more trademarkable, 'hot air' perhaps
Posted by: mathew
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July 7, 2008 2:57 PM
I agree. I think Nike should sue Adobe.
I am surprised that Adobe can enforce a trademark (Air) already owned by Nike... Not sure if Nike Air's comes with a EULA but then again EULA's are crap. I say "Booooo" to Adobe.
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.
So, basically Adobe believes they have trademarked the "AIR" word? What about "Nike AIR", will they be next?
Come on. Isn't this a really hard assault on free speech? What if I had a site "IhateAIR.com"?
Come on.
This is ridiculous! FreshAirApps was actually doing a good thing for the Air ecosystem. It was providing a high quality directory for people to come and use Air apps. It's like cutting the hand that feeds. But then again after the fiasco that is the latest Adobe Acrobat I am less and less surprised. Something needs to change at Adobe.
Posted by: Parvez Halim
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July 7, 2008 3:59 PM
I think most of the people here are confused what part of "AIR" Adobe is defending here. The "AIR" they are defending is not the same AIR in Nike "AIR", the MacBook "AIR" nor the breathable kind of AIR. The "AIR" they are defending is their "Adobe AIR" technology which is exactly what the "air" in fresh"air"apps refers to. The headline is misleading because it makes Adobe seem like they are trying to hold the trademark to the general word "air" which is not the case.
This is very disturbing. It's not like James was selling copies of pirated Adobe software. HE WAS PROMOTING YOUR RUNTIME!
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
My instinctive reaction to this would be to immediately shut down the site and withdraw the free advertising. There are other things on the web, that are far more deserving of attention than a bunch of mindless litigious bastards, worried that someone will actually use their slow clunky "platform".
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 "claim" a trademark and put a little TM by the word or phrase. It has little legal basis, see:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/register.htm
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.
This is just silly on Adobe's part for several reasons.
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.
Geez, Adobe - take a deep breath and relax a little. Nice and deep, in with the good AIR out with the bad.
Oh shit, once again I have committed a trademark offence...
I was having a conversation with someone on twitter the other day about this very same subject. I was saying if twitter wanted to they could sue all the companies/individuals that use the name twitter in the domain they created.
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.
It's not the first time since Adobe took over Flash:
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
What a shame on Adobe. AdobeAIR trademark is not belongs to Adobe Inc. :) / :(
Just look into the url referred by Campbell Anderson
http://www.adobeair.com/aboutUs.html
Where does adobe draw the line when it comes to seeing product names in domain names? Do a search for Flex, Coldfusion, Flash, etc. and you'll come up with a bunch of personal blogs, showcases, and tutorial sites, yet those have been up for years, some even after Adobe bought Macromedia.
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.
I really don't buy "we have to defend this" crap. I have heard it from other companies too not just Adobe. Apple is another company that has done similar actions in the past.
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..
Big companies are complex institutions and common sense is often diluted... just a FOL.
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/ )
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