I don't remember if the Psion has internet access, but isn't the push for netbooks today the ability to surf the internet, check email and exchange instant messages?

As far as I have seen with my experience with Acer's netbook offering, is a small, very useful computer for exactly what is marketed.

I could see if Psion trademarked "nBook" since it will be harder for companies to use the term, but "netbook" is much more generic.

I'm surprised this is just coming to light now. Back in the early- to mid-1990's, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of companies rebranding other notebooks and laptops, and a dozen or so large manufacturers. One thing many of these companies had in common was they liked to cobble names for their machines from a list of prefixes and suffixes. The order would change and form new names, but they were pretty much all the same.

For example, they used prefixes and suffixes like hand, finger, pocket, desk, note, lap, net, power, tough, rugged, book, palm, etc. So we wound up with hundreds of permutations like deskbook, palmnote, lapnote, fingerbook, powernote, etc.

I suppose cobbling two of those names together could make for a trademark, since the words dont actually appear as one in the english language (think PowerBook), but i wouldn't be surprised if someone had already used the term netbook before Psion. And, if that's the case, Psion's trademark is unenforceable.

These sorts of things are stupid. Anyway if a company does not protect their own trademark they fall under the same problem that Kleenex has. If everyone refers to it as that then you cannot retroactively decide to change things around like this.

so by this stupid logic, i can trademark the name "DESKTOP" so anyone that calls their machine a desktop has to pay me a royalty...

Reminds Hormel just can't stop the word 'spam.'

Hopefully Psion will sue the journalists responsible for creating this mess to begin with.

Or more likely, Psion will be rewarded for being a visionary by some manufacturer who sees an opportunity to tap into the potential of having a legally named product that's name is synonymous with its market segment.

It seems pretty clear that it is a trademarked brand. I have no problem with them suing other companies to protect it.

Now it's just a matter of time for the anti-intellectual property crowd to start spewing hate in here.

Probably not. In patent law, at least, that would be called "prior art." I imagine trademark and copyright laws have something similar.

@AndrewMD: Yep, the Psion netBooks had internet access, and came preloaded with stuff like Opera and email/sms clients.

@Wheelsof, except if you are Apple then you can ignore that and patent things after the fact like they did recently with multi-touch.

Don't even get me started on Apple. Steve Jobs is far worse than Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer ever thought of being about appropriating other entities' technology.

In 1999/2000 when psion released these machines, laptops were a rough technology, let alone small extra-portable versions of them built soley for internet surfing. So the fact that they trademarked netbook isnt a shortfall of the patent system. It's just a fair trademark by a company who managed to coin a term that would accidentally become huge ten years later.

People may hate this but this is the system. If someone started selling Athlon computers would it be OK? Just because a product is discontinued doesn't mean you can breach the trademark. And to the wannabe lawyer or law professors commenting here, mere usage of the word before the trademark doesn't make it unenforceable (it's a matter of how it is used and how widespread the use is). Think anyone used the word "windows" before Microsoft? Nevermind...you're interpretation is probably right....

I do have a problem (not legally, but a question of Psion's motives) with Psion taking so long to take action - that is a bit curious as netbook has been commonplace for what seems like a year now.... But if you have a problem with this thing overall take it up with the people who approved the trademark or setup the trademark system.

I'm not personally invested in this. I'm one of those folks who uses "Photoshop" as a verb.

Now I thought I read that Intel actually coined the term netbook?

Maybe Intel collaborated with Psion and eventually Psion trademarked the term. Who said it first doesn't matter; who trademarked it is what matters.

In other news Apple has revealed that they own the "notebook" trademark and will be sending cease and desist letters to all companies currently coining their portable computing solutions as "notebooks."

"Uh your honor I would like to trademark page 3 of the dictionary. Yes, the entire page."

This sets up an interesting dispute. According to the PTO's trademark database "TESS," Micro-Star International has also been granted a registration for "Wind Netbook," and Coby Electronics Corp. has been granted registration for "Coby Netbook," and those registrations are for use on portable personal computers. Before the PTO grants registration, the mark is published in the federal register and there is an opportunity to object. I wonder if Psion objected. Their mark is actually registered as a "typed drawing," not as a "word mark." I'm suspecting that they may find out that what they have rights to is a specific, stylized presentation of their "Netbook" logo, not the word itself.

"Save the Netbooks" campaign launched to fight impending trademark threat

The "Save the Netbooks" campaign is fighting the impending trademark threat
from Psion Teklogix, who have given until the end of March 2009 to cease using
the term, citing trademarks relating to a line of products discontinued over 5
years ago.

For more information visit http://www.savethenetbooks.com/.

In other word, trademarks and copyrights don't matter........

"In other word, trademarks and copyrights don't matter........ "

To me, it's not that they don't matter, it's that this one probably lacks the validity Psion claims. To prove up a case, they'd probably have to show "secondary meaning" and "likelihood of confusion." It's hard to believe they can show that consumers looking for a product known as "Netbook" are actually looking for a Psion with a 190mhz processor and 32mb of RAM (expandable to 64mb!!). And that these people will be "fooled" into buying product with Atom and gigabytes of memory - a "netbook."

It does appear, though, that I was partially mistaken in my post above. The applications for MSI and Coby show as "live" in the TESS database, but I should have followed the links a bit further. Evidently, the PTO has preliminarily decided that those marks are likely to confuse, and has asked the applicants for additional information before deciding whether to grant or deny registration.

The key thing is that so far as we can tell Psion had nothing whatsoever to do with the growth of the netbook brand and as such it is *them* hijacking it from the public, not the other way round (which is what trademarks are designed to protect).

Anyway, the first mission (Reverse the Google AdWords "netbook" ban) is well underway and the ball's in Google's court now.

I don't see it that way. They have a valid trademark on a product not even dissimilar in form and function from the current batch of "netbooks." Just because people forgot it existed doesn't mean it stopped being their property, right?

Wrong. The term has to act as a source-identifier, which is to say that when people hear "netbook" they think "psion". If people forget the term then the trademark essentially ceases to exist (even if it is registered - it loses its teeth).

I wouldn't put too much weight in USPTO's refusals, just as I wouldn't put too much weight in Google's AdWords ban. USPTO don't review the validity of existing trademarks when they assess new ones - it's up to the applicant to start that process.

Really? That sounds wackier than IP laws usually are. The original netBook line of products hadn't even been out of production for five years before the "netbook" craze started catching on. I think you're going to have to say more than "people forgot it" to fight Psion's claims to protected intellectual property.

I believe everytime someone searches for Netbooks that this possibly hurts my business
As the legal owner of the trademark netbookpro.com and also it’s domain name, I feel that a C&D letter from my company to Psion or any company using the internet to prompt products using the Netbook or Netbookpro would be apporiate..Whereas Netbookpro.com is an internet based company which depends on the internet for business. Your comments would be appreciated—Jim