I hope PythonAnywhere can help the PSF defeat a trademark application for the name 'Python':

http://pyfound.blogspot.ca/2013/02/python-trademark-at-risk-in-europe-we.html

If the trademark application is successful, some people have suggested that the company could try to sue European companies using 'Python' in their name. I don't know if that's true, but I'd urge you to voice your support for the PSF anyway.

Don't worry, we're on the case. We'll blog about it soon.

What is wrong with those people. Find your own name! I sure hope the legal system sees the obviousness of PSF being there first.

Quite brazen of them, certainly. I can't believe they'll get away with it - maybe with a less well known language, but not Python, especially with companies the size of Google making such well publicised use of it.

They've apparently owned the domain python.co.uk since 2000 or so. And according to Michael Sparks on the python-uk mailing list, someone (no idea if it's the same people) have been running various Internet-related services on and off at that domain since 1998. So it's not completely out of the blue.

OTOH Python-the-language has been around since 1991, and (according to archive.org) the python.org site has been around since at least 1997.

Sure, but owning a domain doesn't count for a lot - just look at all the cyber squatters who had their domains forcibly removed by the trademark owners.

If they've been doing a significant business under the name for more than a couple of years, that might be more serious.

The important thing is it's gotten noticed and being dealt with seriously. Would suck to not know it was happening and get blind sided with a cease & desist after the fact!!!

Indeed! The PSF does a great job of policing the Python trademark, and we're glad to be helping them. I'm pretty confident that this will all get sorted out sensibly. A lot of people are rallying around.

I'll still be glad when it's officially settled. History is littered with too many examples of injustice!!

Us too! Here's our blog post about the issue, with our formal response included at the bottom.

Hear, hear. Veber / Our Holdings must realise that they're unlikely to succeed. I've been working on the assumption that it's some sort of publicity exercise. Or perhaps a trademark trolling sideline, but in that case I suspect they'd have kept the whole thing as quiet as possible.

Thanks for the post Giles. Please keep us posted as you hear news (good or bad). I'm following it on the Python website, but since you are in the EU, you may have much more to add.

With this latest article from The Register this whole argument has become as bad as watching Arsenal play (Veber takes a dive!)

Reading that article really makes one wonder what ever happened to truth and honesty in public discourse. It's as if people are allergic to telling the truth!

Oh, and thank you for the update...please keep it coming.

Hm - I can quite believe that the PSF might be guilty of not responding to requests in a timely manner, however. These non-commercial organisations can be a bit creaky at times. Unfortunately the courts tend to take a dim view of anything other than a prompt response to any challenge or query.

If there is one, I certainly look forward to hearing the response.

Dispute Resolved

According to the Python.org Home page: "Python trademark dispute resolved!"

The announcement links to this article on Blogspot.

CHEERS...☺

Seems like the settlement was fairly amicable as well - although they'd probably have said that anyway.

I didn't think it would come to anything, but it's nice to see it confirmed.

Yup, I should have posted about that here. It definitely sounds like good news, and from the chatter on the PSF members list it sounds like it really was amicable. Definitely a happy ending to a potentially worrying problem.

It's just a name. Just a name. There could be many other products around the globe having a similar name. How about stop worrying about it? Would you mind spending your valuable time for better things?

Of course all opinions are welcome. You are right that the Python movement is big & strong enough to recover from such an issue if it had gone completely bad, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't have been difficult and painful fallout.

At least in this case we no longer have to be concerned and as stated...let's move on!!

☺

Right, it is just a name. But the company concerned was applying for a trademark on that name. Trademarks are exclusive, so it they'd got it then every product and service in the world that used the word "Python" to refer to the programming language and did business in the EU would have to rename itself and remove all use of the word "Python" from their website. This would have been an enormous cost, not just for us but for our competitors and every one of the open source projects that has been created for the Python programming language since it was created in the early 90s.

So I'm very glad it's all settled and like a2j says, we can move on.