Seriously, have you all heard of this business with the Dervaes family trademarking the term, "urban homestead" and "urban homesteading"? There are bloggers out there who have received polite legal letters telling them to please refrain from using the term(s) and to also change their blog names, as now, the Dervaes family of Pasadena, California OWNS it. The Dervaes site currently claims they are not suing bloggers (yet?), but this blogger at the Urban Homestead Experiment received a letter last week from Jules Dervaes, explaining their newly owned trademark. What will they do if bloggers do not change their blog names?
As it stands, no letter here. Seems many folks received theirs last week. Maybe my blog doesn't warrant a nasty-gram. I definitely don't blog nearly as much as I used to since child #3 was born. I don't sell anything off my blog and I don't receive ad revenue. So maybe that has deemed me permissible in their eyes. Wait a second, my blog is titled, The Urban HomesteadER- a name that isn't trademarked (yet?)! I guess I'm in the clear for now. At any rate, it's all kind if exciting, isn't it? That is, if it weren't so freakin' ridiculous and against the very notion of growing your own food and honoring your local community!! Argh!
Adam Parfrey, publisher of the book, The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (2008), authored by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutsen, seems to be having issues with the Dervaes too. Even though his book was published before this silly trademark, the Dervaes have filed suit against him. More on that here.
And if you're on Face Book, there's a whole lot of controversy there as well,with a new group called Take Back Urban Home-Steading.
Ack. All this makes me a little sick to my stomach. It's all so sad, stupid, greedy.
5 comments:
Oh boy. I read about this a few days ago and forgot about it and now just read urbanhomesteadx's personalized letter (wow!). How do you patent language and have a good feeling about that? Urban homesteading would be a verb, wouldn't it? I'd better get on the horn and patent the word "nourishing" so that from now on you may only use generic terms like feed well, care for, or the act of bettering.
Does it seem inconsistent to anyone else who have followed their blog for a while? Don't they rail against Monsanto who attempts to patent life and then go after the small guy trying to do the right thing? This wreaks of hypocrisy and absolute absurdity.
Absolutely ridiculous! It kind of turns me off them which rather defeats the principles and ideas they set out with at the start don't you think?
I agree with you both, ladies. This is all super crazy-making. Though Shannon, I really like the term, "act of bettering". It's been making me smile all morning. :)
I read a post on a forum that pointed out that they recieved like a grade lower trademark for Urban Homestead because it is ambiguous enough it would not hold up in court. They have 5 yrs to make the term only relate to them to keep the trademark. Could this be their motivation? Why do they even care to trademark the term? What do they plan to do with it? I changed my blog's name "The Urban Homestead" to "A Minneapolis Homestead" after hearing their statement on their site. I don't want to deal with a lawsuit over a little blog I do for fun. I did not change my URL though http://theurbanhomestaed.blogspot.com I did not recieve any letters either, but I do believe they sent the letters unlike the hoax they claim on their site.
This is crazy. The word Urban Homestead has been around for a very long time. I am a fan of there's on facebook and have a link to there sit. I really looked up to them. Now I'm just ticked. You would think they would support everyone who homesteads and blogs about it. That's what they say on all those interviews they do. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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