This seems to be a bit of a non-story, these kind of cease-and-desist letters (when it comes to trademarks) are usually triggered by automatic systems that monitor trademark usage across the web.
While Azeria is definitely a well respected member of the community, there was a lack of due diligence on her part, specially when she has claimed on her "arm-assembly.com" website "All Rights Reserved", which she can't clearly claim from the domain.
It's not nice to receive a cease-and-desist letter but we need to put things in perspective and put the emotional part aside before throwing drama on Twitter.
Where she went wrong was in contacting ARM to try to get it resolved. The smart thing to do would have been to politely reply to the C&D and refer the lawyers to her contacts at ARM, CCing it to the people she worked with there.
"I wrote my thesis about Arm security features and exploit mitigations for Arm's internal use, [have] given internal presentations, keynoted their conference, advocated for them, visited them at their HQ in Cambridge – all without compensation because I wanted this to be a mutually beneficial relationship instead of a gig."
When are engineers going to learn that corporate entities have no more capacity for friendship than a scorpion? They are run as and attract people interested in the mindless accumulation of more capital. You can have warm personal relationship with individual people at a company, but unless they are the top executives or largest shareholders those warm personal relationships don't mean anything compared to a spreadsheet. The corporate officers are not your pals.
People are downvoting the parent comment here, but it's correct. If you're going to name your domain after a commercial product in some way and you are all buddy-buddy with the people that make the product, get it in writing instead of relying on good vibes.
Just because there are rules doesn’t mean they make sense in context. This doesn’t serve ARMs best interest nor Azeria. It’s a lose lose.
Maybe it was automatically triggered, but I guess the point is a lot of things in the world are some shade of grey and employing machines to make a binary decision without any review process doesn’t serve anybody’s best interest. Perhaps throwing “drama on Twitter“ is the only way to get a real human in the loop of the automated insanity we’ve trapped ourselves in.
I don't think Arm's boss is personally offended by any of this but trademark laws require companies to protect their own trademark, otherwise they might simply lose the rights to own it.
It is explained in the article:
"At the same time, we have a duty to protect the Arm brand, which has been built over more than 30 years. Like all companies with registered trademarks, Arm is legally obligated to ensure those trademarks are protected and used appropriately. We recognize that this activity is sometimes met with frustration and are actively working to find a solution that works for all parties involved."
It's not about 'rules', it is a legal requirement.
This is wrong. Companies only need to “protect” trademarks by going after companies that offer similar products using that trademarked name. Unless a company gets a service mark, trademarks also only apply in certain categories.
This was massive overreach by ARM. And frankly it was really inappropriate of the hosting provider to interfere with the websites.
Nowhere does acknowledging and permitting the use require a C&D. A simple “we see you and this is fine” letter would’ve also met the policing requirement.
The C&D is only required when you want to shut folks up and get the lawyers their bonuses.
Those websites were not selling chips or chip designs. Those websites used the trademark to refer the same product and do not create any potential for confusion.
Please show me where there is a "legal duty" to go after fair use and be callous and lazy towards someone who is actively working to make your product better.
Edit: Even if ARM had been completely unwilling to allow the fair use here, they could still have reached out directly since there is already a close relationship, rather than to going to the hosting provider and getting everything, even unrelated stuff, yanked down.
I sure hope this is the end of the Pro Bono work the author does for them.
This isn't one of those cases. This isn't a Xerox, Hoover, or even Google situation. Simple reference of a trademark is allowed. What holders need to guard against is dilution and generification within the applicable domain.
Yet it seems to me that is is pretty unclear that this is an open and shut case of trademark infringement. This appears to an example of fair-use to me as there is nothing her that would indicate any potential for confusion to the market or harm to the brand.
Part of problem here is that the incentives support over enforcement, there is little to no legal consequence when companies go after fair use and a lack on enforcement does carry risks of eventually losing the trademark.
However, that doesn't justify ARM's actions here. There are plenty of ways that ARM could have approached this that would have protected their trademark without the loss of goodwill from someone they have a valuable relationship with.
Taking this approach is indicative of laziness and indiffence.
I highly doubt it was the case,and follow-ups should have cleared a few things and not a straight uncompensated handover, especially to someone who keynoted your conferences.
In light of IPO, most likely the corporation wanted to kill any lose ends and it results in a PR disaster which eventually won't have any impacts. So for arm, it's a win win.
Funny things, they registered a riscv domain in the past to bad mouth RISC.
Those would have been satisfied by a friendly "You know, we need to keep track of uses of our trademark and see that they're in line. You keynoted our conferences, your sites are valuable for our ecosystem. How about you put a trademark notice somewhere and we call it a day?"
> This seems to be a bit of a non-story, these kind of cease-and-desist letters (when it comes to trademarks) are usually triggered by automatic systems that monitor trademark usage across the web.
But you're still morally responsible when you set up an automated system to do an awful thing - if I set up an automated gun to shoot everybody who comes through the door because they might be criminals, it's the same as if I indiscriminately shot them with my own hand.
It's not an awful thing. They have no easy way to assess whether a given domain is a cool project run by a cool person or a malware sheltering scam site. Histrionic comparisons don't alter the fact that it would have been smarter to respond to the C&D letter directly.
> They have no easy way to assess whether a given domain is a cool project run by a cool person or a malware sheltering scam site
There most certainly is an easy way: have a human check the website. What you meant is there is no easy way that costs little to no money.
Unwillingness to pay for an adequate solution is not a legitimate excuse for negligence. If you can't afford to do things right, you can't afford to do them at all.
The trademark attorneys aren't well qualified to do that, which is why it would have been smarter to respond to them directly and refer them to someone at ARM itself.
Unwillingness to pay for an adequate solution is not a legitimate excuse for negligence. If you can't afford to do things right, you can't afford to do them at all.
This is how you want things to be, not how they are. Corporations are focused on maximizing profits and lowering risk and cost.
Where did I say the work should be done by trademark attorneys? They should have hired the appropriate people to do the required work. The original domain owner should not be responsible for fixing someone else's negligent mistake.
And that's very much how things are. Go into any court room and argue "it's okay that someone suffered material damage as a foreseeable result of my actions because I saved money" and see how it goes. Corporations maximize profits within the limits of still carrying out their obligations.
“I wrote my thesis about Arm security features and exploit mitigations for Arm's internal use, [have] given internal presentations, keynoted their conference, advocated for them, visited them at their HQ in Cambridge – all without compensation because I wanted this to be a mutually beneficial relationship instead of a gig." They already knew she was a cool person
The law firm didn't, and as I said in my other comment, having a good relationship with people at a corporation does not mean you have a good relationship with the corporation. Corporations aren't people, and the people who run them don't care about those relationships, unless they extend into the C-suite. That's why it would have been smarter to respond to the law firm directly, and to get agreements from ARM about domain names in writing. Relying on handshakes is foolish.
"It was an automated system" isn't a defense unless the entity which performed the automated action immediately reverses course when made aware. So far it seems like ARM/SoftBank is on board with this action, automated or not.
Isn't "all rights reserved" a copyright thing, not a trademark thing? I don't think I've seen anyone interpret "all rights reserved" to mean "I own the rights to all trademarks mentioned".
While Azeria is definitely a well respected member of the community, there was a lack of due diligence on her part, specially when she has claimed on her "arm-assembly.com" website "All Rights Reserved", which she can't clearly claim from the domain.
It's not nice to receive a cease-and-desist letter but we need to put things in perspective and put the emotional part aside before throwing drama on Twitter.