Dell: All Your Netbooks Are Not Belong To Psion

By Davey Winder
Saturday, 21 February 2009 18:07

Market

Dell desperately wants a bigger share of the netbook market, but it also wants to be able to call them netbooks and is taking the trademark fight to Psion.

Both Dell and HP have announced new 10 inch netbooks this week, while Asus has lost the netbook crown to Acer according to recent reports.

Apple, meanwhile, fervently denies any interest in entering the netbook market and Psion wants everyone to remember that they cannot call these small, value for money sub notebooks netbooks.

Psion, a British outfit that launched a 'netBook' back in 1999 has been sending cease and desist letters warning that it owns the netbook trademark.

Google, it would appear, has been listening as it banned the word from its advertising network recently. Dell, on the other hand, remain to be convinced of the validity of the Psion claim.

In fact, Dell has gone as far as to challenge Psion over ownership of the netbook trademark. It has filed a petition for trademark cancellation with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

In the six-page filing, Dell argues that as Psion no longer offers laptop computers being sold as netbooks and that it has no plans so to do. As a result, it insists, Psion has effectively abandoned the netbook mark.

Things get a little nasty deep in the petition when Dell accuses Psion of being economical with the truth when it swore that the company was using the netbook mark in commerce as recently as November 2006.