THIS is the automated e-mail you get if you ask for an exemption for website name.

Automated Email

Thanks for your trademark licensing request. If you haven't already, please visit the Second Life Brand Center at . It has information about our licensing programs---like the inSL Logo Program---that may be of interest to you. You may also find answers to your questions in our FAQs at [url].

Please be aware that we're unlikely to grant special requests to use our trademarks in ways not allowed in the Second Life Brand Center, except in limited cases that are strategic for our business. It's nothing personal---it's just what we need to do to protect our trademarks.

Because we receive a huge number of licensing requests, please plan that it will take at least 4 weeks for us to respond. Remember that a pending request does not give you any special permission to use our trademarks. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Thanks for your interest in the Second Life world.

Best regards,

Linden Lab
[email]

-----

See SLU for details, including what I think of that outrageous second paragraph.

[url=]http://www.sluniverse.com[/url]

Thread is under the "General Forum," and is entitled, "LL to Enforce Brand Name."

coco

P.S. Oh yeah . . . so, what do you think of this? <---- my question

The whole SL business is ridiculous, where on the website do Linden Lab actually use SL?

it's ours Linden Labs, damn you, SL is resident content creation,

Our World, Our Imagination, Our SL

Do we need a Legend?

How about "OUR SL, Linden Labs are putting a R in our SOUL"

Or maybe "OUR SL, Linden Labs are putting a ® in our SOUL"

SOU(R)

I'm not sure what your beef is, really. (NOT having gone to dig up that other thread you mentioned - never been at sluniverse.com)

You asked to use their trademark and they referred you to their policy. What's so outrageous about that? People protecting their trademarks is nothing new.

If this has been debated at length and I'm missing some information, then this proably doesn't need to be rehashed here WITHOUT also providing the missing information

If I owned Second Life, I'd be careful where my logos go, too. Just ask Microsoft, the Ford Motor Company or Burt's Beanery down the street. Branding is not a simple issue.

.

But 'SL'? Whenever have you been aware that was specific to Linden Labs, lets have an example

The beef is with SL, there was no mention of the use of SL in the previous trademark guidelines, many people use SL, many claim it's user created. I don't see "SL" all over the official site.

I can understand LL wanting to trademark "SL" since it's used to refer to their product more often than the actual name is, but I think they'd be foolish not to give exemptions to people like SL Universe, and SLexchange who've been using it for years before LL attempted to trademark it. Both sites add value to LL's product and engendering ill will with such long standing third party sites and their users doesn't strike me as a particularly good move. Then again, the more exceptions they make, the more everyone else is going to want an exception too. LL should have done this years ago.

The OP did not say what piece of LL she wanted to use for her website name. Like I said, there is information missing in this post.

The branding issue seems to be the cause of much hysteria and, in my view, much ado about nothing. LL is looking ahead (although I'd wish they'd look at their failing servers a bit more than their legal entity) and making decisions as to how their image is to be used. And (albeit by a stretch) SL has become part of their image.

I have no intentions of placing a trademark symbol each time I say "Linden Labs" but I can respect LLs demands NOT to see their various logos used frivously or for other people's self-gain. Why is that a problem?

It's Linden Lab You're supposed to refer to it that way and in the blog they again said you're supposed to refer to their products in a certain fashion when talking about the product, not when you're advertising, not in marketing material but when a resident is blogging. That is absurd.

I agree about their logos being used in the correct fashion, but some of this goes beyond common sense and they've moved the goalposts and again "SL", how on earth has SL suddenly became their trademark?

http://www.sl.com might disagree with this.

This system has been called "SL Forums" forever, hasn't it?

I didn't ask a thing. That letter was not sent to me.

coco

Trademarks are often limited to a particular business domain. It is therefore possible for multiple companies to own the same trademark but in different domains.

The application for SL from Linden Lab is for the business areas of providing a 3D virtual world service and software. Whilst running an OpenSim grid with SL in the title would be a trademark infringement, running a different service (such as a blog or a forum) would not automatically be an infringement of LL's trademark.

Matthew

I don't want to use any piece of SL in my brand name.

As I said, you can read the thread at SLU if you want to find out who received that letter. Or discover any information you consider "missing" here.

And I believe you miss the entire point of the whole issue if you think people are wanting to use SL "frivolously" or for their own "self-gain."

It is fan sites we are talking about here, among others, for one thing; and those are the sites and services that not only helped make SL what it is today, but which provided SL with mucho free word of mouth; AND to whom LL gave the full go-ahead to use the letters SL in their names, until, like, last week.

SL wasn't this huge wonderful company that residents came along and started taking ADVANTAGE of.

SL wasn't ANYTHING until residents made it what it is today.

And many of those sites are part of why SL is what it is today. And until last week, those sites had full approval to use "SL" in their names.

coco

How about going to the Brand Center first and seeing if it falls inside the guidelines first before bitching? I see nothing objectionable about the second paragraph. What did you want?

Those sites already KNOW their names fall outside the guidelines, and they would like exemptions.

As for the second paragraph, it essentially says, "So long, residents and thanks for all the fish; you are no longer of concern to OUR business."

If anything, LL took advantage of all these sites all these years for publicity and services that improve the resident experience; then pulls the plug on them suddenly, telling them to rebuild their whole site/service after all this time, at their own expense, and for frivolous reasons: "SL is okay as long as you have TWO proper nouns after it, not one."

All that and then say, "Nothing personal."

Nothing personal indeed. Nothing personal at ALL. Not even a nod of thanks to those sites. As if those sites have nothing to do with "our business."

And this after telling them for years that having the word SL in their names was APPROVED; after inviting them to list those names on this web site, and so on and so forth.

I can only hope and assume that LL isn't going to shaft these major sites, and will allow them to continue using the names LL approved of their using all this time.

coco

P.S. This thing should really be grandfathered in entirely, for everyone.

Yes, this is the most annoying part of the issue, especially given that LL has been shoving us off onto 3rd party sites for discussions, with SLUniverse and SLExchange being the two major forums that many fled to. To force them to change their names at this late a date smacks of blatant contempt towards users and the companies within SL that use these sites. Yes, I said blatant contempt, because they encouraged us to use these sites, either by their own policy (shutting down General Discussion being one example) or because they can't manage the same kind of services that exists in a third party site.

Something interesting: Nissan Motors doesn't own the website www.nissan.com, but is suing the person that does, who has been using the name Nissan in their computer/international company since Nissan was Datsun. I'd love to see how that turns out, because frankly, I don't see how Nissan Motors has a chance of winning.. unless major bribes were involved.

If a site in question genuinely was one that LL took advantage of all these years for publicity and services that improve the resident experience, that would mean that the site is "strategic to LL's buisness" - and should be granted a waiver under their own policy.

I am one of the many folks that could potentially be affected by this change in policy, and received the form letter you quoted at the top of the thread.

I think its premature to take the form letter as reason to freak. Cause for concern? Absolutely. But I'm going to wait & see whether Linden either doesn't see a problem with my domain name - or issues me a waiver on the grounds of being strategic to their buisness.

Either way, I'm not going to let my blood pressure rise over a form letter that merely restates what's already been said on the blog & knowledgebase - and obviously intended not to be a 'ruling', but a confirmation that Linden received my email request.

I agree with Travis, I wouldn't panic. Certainly wouldn't panic on behalf of some other company, like SL Exchange ... presumably they'll deal with LL on their own behalf. Grandfathering in businesses that were previously using one's marks is fairly commonly done.

If LL doesn't protect their marks etc., the same thing might have happened to them as happened to this company:

http://www.sl.com/aboutsl/aboutsl.shtml

See, they call themselves SL but didn't bother to protect that (with perhaps more modesty than LL, they only marked longer, less common forms) and then along comes Second Life *oops*

Maybe that SL can be mollified if this SL gives them a contract to monitor LL's business performance! *chuckles*
.

All of these arguments are nicely laid out in an article in the April 1 edition of Multiverse Messenger.

I'm just sayin.

A lot of these third party blogs and fan sites were the best sources of positive advertising Second Life has had , since I've been here, at a time where a lot of the Mainstream Media were only looking to smear it.. So now that "Those With The Trademarked Name" are poised for something: IPO, Big Investors, Corporate Invasion, etc, they seem to be kicking those same people to the curb.

It doesn't matter that they probably won't go after the little blogger. By summarily dismissing any real chance of compromise or consideration, they have pretty much sent their message. "We don't need you anymore." We've complained that LL needs to start acting like a real company, and I'd say they are on the right track, I imagine they will soon be the perfect example of Corporate America.

One interesting twist is what if a Business had the letters SL in it but was referring to the initials of the Avatar. Or a Player had a RL business with SL in it referring to thier REAL initials.

Be interesting to see how LL would react.

(Is remembering a case long ago where a bar tried to sue a silverware maker for using the trademarked name of the bar....ie "spoon"

I was talking with my IP lawyer earlier about this case. We looked up LL's trademark application for SL. As long as you aren't a business that creates virtual worlds, operates virtual worlds, creates software to create virtual worlds, or deals with sending text communications to virtual worlds, you can use SL as often as you want, however you want. The policy that they state on the website is overreaching and unenforceable. And the trademark has not even been granted yet. Assuming the trademark does get granted, it will only apply to the business types that LL claims to be using it in. I could start a website called SLworld.com right now (assuming it isn't taken), and as long as I don't enter the business types that LL has claimed, they can't stop me. They can choose to sue me, but they could easily end up paying my lawyer's fees, and possibly more.

You'd have to look up their applications for 'Second Life', 'Hippos', 'Grid', and any others, but it is very likely that they are also limited to those specific businesses.

They wouldn't have to. They'd just delete your account, delete your stuff, reclaim and auction off your land, etc. Legally enforceable doesn't matter if they can point to it as a ToS violation as a reason for wiping your account out of existence. You've got the law on your side to do that; they hold power of existence over your in-world stuff.