Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Have you got one of those small, cheap sub-notebooks that have proved so popular thanks to the likes of Acer and ASUS? Better not set up a website about them or the trademark police might track you down.
Everyone but Apple, that is. Steve Jobs has
made it clear that he has
no real interest in the netbook market, if recent reports are to be
believed.
One company that did have an interest, long before anyone else, was the
British outfit Psion which launched the very first 'netBook' way back
in 1999. Then things went pretty quiet from Psion, until now.
Even at the height of the netbook media feeding frenzy at the start of
the year, when the Eee PC dominated the headlines, Psion was keeping
quiet.
But now it appears
that Psion is getting busy, and vocal, about how it has the trademark
on the term netbook and is prepared to defend it.
It claims to have been using the term netbook continuously since 1999,
although admits in recent years that the extent of that usage "has not
been that great." However, the fact that Psion still supplies Psion
netBook accessories helps with the cease and desist case.
Ah yes, cease and desist. Letters have been going out to websites which
make a "direct, financial profit from use of the ‘Netbook’ trademark"
apparently.
According to the Psion legal representatives, Origin, which represents
the Psion trademark position the intent is clear: the "over-riding
priority" is to persuade the retail sector to "adopt a different term."
Hey, good luck with that one! The term netbook has become pretty much
generic, trademark or not. Despite the lawyers stating that Psion would
prefer it if journalists and bloggers used some other term than netbook
now that they are "aware of Psion's registered trade marks."
Thankfully, Origin has also confirmed that it does not intend to start
a wave of lawsuits against journalists. So is this just a bit of Xmas
puff and bluster, all Santa pants and no bite after all?
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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