Yahoo Registered Wiki

Someone wrote: "Yahoo applied to trademark WIKI in English and in Korean in March 2004, and started to serve WIKI service through Yahoo korea." but this poster offers no evidence, so this whole page is booooogus.

The unsubstantiated submitter offered http://kr.ks.yahoo.com/service/wiki_know/wikiknow_main.html as a sample, and asked: "Can someone who reads Korean tell us more about this site?"

However, that site is merely a Yahoo site with "wiki" in it's url. Google lists about 353,000,000 responses to a search for [inurl:wiki] (see http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:wiki&num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&rlz=1T4GGLD_en___US215&filter=0 ).

Further, the site can be (entertainingly) translated from Korean to English by Google Language Tools (see http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fkr.ks.yahoo.com%2Fservice%2Fwiki_know%2Fwikiknow_main.html&langpair=ko%7Cen&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools ) and in that I see NOTHING supporting any claim that Yahoo claims the word "wiki" as it's own mark in trade.

Finally, a search for "yahoo" and "wiki" at the US Trademark web site ( http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchstr&state=q7s77a.1.1 ) reveals NO such applications or registrations.

So, without evidence, this speculation is a self defeating spiral and a complete and utter waste of time. I consider it null and void.

-- Peter Blaise

PS - There are 47 applications or registrations for "wiki" at the US Trademark Office and as far as I can tell, the use of the word "wiki" has yet to be "owned" by anyone.

Here's report of US Trademark Office Examiner's in-house search for a "wikisearch" trademark application:

# Total Dead Live Live Status/ Search

   Marks  Marks Viewed Viewed   Search    
                Docs   Images   Duration

01 1 0 1 1 0:01 77071496[SN] 02 7 4 3 3 0:01 randall[on] and adams[on] 03 499 N/A 0 0 0:02 *w{"eiy"}{"cxqk"}{"eiy"}*[bi,ti] 04 7822 N/A 0 0 0:02 *{"scz"}{"eiy"}arch*[bi,ti] 05 1 0 1 1 0:01 3 and 4 06 6 3 3 3 0:02 *w{"eiy"}{"cxqk"}{"eiy"}s*[bi,ti] 07 255 128 127 89 0:04 3 and "009"[cc] 08 6752 N/A 0 0 0:04 4 and "009"[cc] 09 4240 N/A 0 0 0:03 4 and ("009" or "041" or "042" or "a" or "b" or "200")[ic] 10 1726 N/A 0 0 0:02 search[bi,ti] and ("009" or "041" or "042" or "a" or "b" or "200")[ic] 11 10 7 3 1 0:01 search[fm] and ("009" or "041" or "042" or "a" or "b" or "200")[ic] 12 38 21 17 15 0:01 wiki[bi,ti]

Informative, eh? Read it yourself at ( http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLN4j3CQXJgFieAfqRqCLGpugijnCBIH1vfV-P_NxU_QD9gtzQ0IhyR0UAsP-yKA!!/delta/base64xml/L0lDU0lKQ1RPN29na21DU1Evb0tvUUFBSVFnakZJQUFRaENFSVFqR0VKemdBIS80SkZpQ28wZWgxaWNvblFWR2hkLXNJZDJFQSEhLzdfMF8xMkwvNC9zYS5nb3YudXNwdG8udG93LmFjdGlvbnMuRGV0YWlsVmlld0FjdGlvbg!!# ) As far as I can tell, there are more than 2 dozen references in the file suggesting that the word "wiki" is not own-able in the applied-for context, and the case is unresolved. And so it goes. A little research deflates a whole lot of hot air balloons.

I have not trademarked wiki, instead allowing it to become common usage referring to a widely implemented style of collective authoring. Anyone claiming trademark has to defend their mark by showing that this is not the case. Perhaps trademark law is different in Korea? Does anybody know? -- WardCunningham

The WIKI (all in upper case) trademark is applied by the yahoo US (the head office), according to a news report I read at http://news.naver.com/news_read.php?oldid=2004033000003535085, which is written in Korean unfortunately. (It's applied but not yet registered as of April 2004.)

The whole yahoo wiki site is one of the poorest implementations of the wiki philosophy. It does allow collective authoring, which I think is the only conformance of yahoo wiki site to the original wiki philosophy. What it aims at is a competitor to Naver's Ji Shik In (knowledge-man) service (http://kin.naver.com/), which is a Questions-And-Answers style knowledge database. Therefore, the yahoo wiki is more like a blend of wikipedia and Q&A db.

Naming rule is not very strict in the site implicitly or explicitly. People create pages like "How to choose gorgeous carpets" (even with some special characters to emphasize the title). It is extremely hard to link to another wiki page. The wiki site forms a set of isolated pages not a network of the whole.

It is very sad that the beauty of Wiki's original philosophy is removed from the yahoo wiki site. I also saw an advertisement of yahoo "WIKI" in a subway train coming back home -- the concept was "I called superman but all of them came along, spiderman, hulk, wonderwoman, and etc".

-- JuneKim

So the implication is that only Yahoo can use "Wiki" as an advertising term, but "non-businesses" can still use it? Or is this the first step in a soon-to-be-annoying legal battle with Wiki maintainers, developers, and authors? -- LayneThomas

No, Yahoo can't defend a trademark on "Wiki". It's already a generic term for a type of service, not a specific supplier's service. Trademark law doesn't distinguish between "advertising" and "non-business" use. Of course, someone would have to challenge Yahoo's trademark to invalidate it. -- EricHodges

What a weird world where Ward would have to challenge Yahoo in court for the right to allow others to use what he invented, never charged for, and always wanted to be free. . . -- LayneThomas

Perhaps, but can you think of a less weird world? The alternative is a global or national registry of non-trademarked words and phrases. Who would fund such an endeavor? -- EH

google? -- LCT

Why would Google fund it? Consider the research and legal costs involved. Where's the profit for Google? -- EH

Well, not necessarily fund it, but you'd think they could google for a term or word before allowing a trademark on it. . . 11.4 million references seems like a word already in use, especially when "greed" only gets 1.5 million. - LCT

So you're proposing that only words or phrases that don't occur in Google can be trademarked. The only downside I can see is an explosion of new words like "Acura" and "Viagra". -- EH

That's different from our current situation? Not mention that "yahoo" is a yodel - they even use it like that in commercials. What happens when someone decides to make "wikidows" - a wiki windowing system, and yahoo sues them? It's already happened with lindows (linux windows), and a host of other cases. No. . . I don't know Ward's personal opinion on this (probably because he's smart about the media) - but Yahoo registered Wiki as a trademark is definitely not a good thing. -- anon

It's different from our current situation because anything can be trademarked that isn't already trademarked. Never mind "wikidows": Yahoo can (and if they want to demonstrate that they are actively protecting their trademark, they are obligated to) sue Ward for using their mark in the name of this site. If a company doesn't try to stop other entities from using its mark they can't maintain it. That's why you see all those seemingly silly cases like Starbucks suing a bar owner for selling "Star Bock" beer. It isn't that Starbucks hates bar owners. If they can't show the court that they've made reasonable efforts to protect their mark it becomes "generic" (like Aspirin) and loses trademark status. -- EH

Eric, I take it this is what you're saying: Yahoo is obligated to sue Ward if it doesn't want its trademark to fall into generic use. But Yahoo can't win the suit if 'wiki' is already a generic term (which, I figure, it already is). Nevertheless, "someone would have to challenge Yahoo's trademark to invalidate it." Right? So I guess the danger is that, if someone does not challenge Yahoo and if Yahoo doesn't bother to sue anyone, 'Wiki' (especially when it's capitalized) might eventually become "ungeneric," shall we say, in public use. The teeming masses will, by default, eventually use it only to refer to Yahoo's own whatever. ??? -- ElizabethWiethoff

Yahoo can win the suit if their lawyers can convince a judge that "wiki" isn't a generic term, regardless of whether it really is or not. If Yahoo doesn't send Ward a demand letter, that will make a trademark protest case easier to win. But unless someone protests the trademark, it stands (as I understand trademark law). -- EH (I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV. Ward should speak with his attorney about this just to cover his ass.)

True, a suit always comes down to who argues the best... -- EW

I don't believe a protest of the registration requires a court challenge. A letter writing campaign to the right government department might be enough. Does anyone know who that is? -- Ward

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but:

The USPTO's (http://www.uspto.gov/) Trademark FAQ - which briefly discusses challenging a trademark http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/tmfaq.htm

What seems to be a decent website relating to trademarks: http://www.ggmark.com/

I found an article about someone who challenged Trump's "you're fired" trademark http://www.forbes.com/reuters/newswire/2004/03/30/rtr1317251.html

and something ironic http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/Law/intellectual_property/trademarks/

hope this helps, I usually stay neutral, but like I've said "threaten my loved ones and. . ."

-- anon

It may be noted that the yahoo directory already has a wikis category, pointing to this and a few other examples.