Free for All: Urban Homestead Service Mark Spurs Trademark Scuffle

Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen co-authored The Urban Homestead. Photo by AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes.

William McGeveran says the Dervaes Institute likely overshot whatever trademark rights it ever had

By Arin Greenwood
American Bar Association Journal
Aug 1, 2011

Excerpt:

Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology-focused civil liberties group in San Francisco, has taken up the cause for three parties who received takedown notices from the Dervaes Institute: Urban homesteaders Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, who co-wrote the book The Urban Homestead, and the couple’s publisher, Process Media.

They did not take down anything.

In late February, McSherry sent her own cease-and-desist letter to the Dervaeses, demanding that they stop telling her clients to stop using the homesteading terms. Winston & Strawn also joined in the trademark scuffle; the law firm filed a petition along with the EFF asking the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the registrations on the grounds that the words are descriptive and generic. The Dervaeses did not respond to requests for an interview.

Read the complete article here.