Dervaes family trademarks "urban homestead"
Maybe you've heard the buzz
by now --- the Dervaes family (authors of urbanhomestead.org) have
trademarked the following terms:
- URBAN HOMESTEAD®
- URBAN HOMESTEADING®
- PATH TO FREEDOM®
- GROW THE FUTURE®
- HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION®
- FREEDOM GARDENS®
- LITTLE HOMESTEAD IN THE CITY®
I can understand the
urge to protect their intellectual property (even though I feel like,
in today's digital age, that kind of "mine!" mentality is a bit
misguided.) Just the other day, I noticed another book with
"urban homesteading" in the title, and I understand that publishers are
getting ready to churn out yet more books on the topic.
On the other hand, the
Dervaes family doesn't seem to be going after the big dogs.
Instead, they've sent cease and desist letters to the Santa Monica
Public Library for hosting a free event on urban homesteading and have
forced Facebook to shut down several groups with "urban homesteading"
in the title. They are, apparently, sending out letters to little
guys, too, with the following wording:
"When using a phrase listed above to refer to the work of the Dervaes Institute, proper trademark usage should include the proper trademark notice [®], use the protected phrase in all capital letters, and note in close proximity that the term is a protected trademark of Dervaes Institute."
The Dervaes family say
on their blog that we shouldn't be pissed off about this because all
kinds of other terms (like biodynamic and simple living) are
trademarked, adding that we should be glad they trademarked the term
rather than leaving it to be trademarked by an evil corporation.
However, my gut feeling is that those of us who make our livings from
the homesteading movement have a moral obligation to help that movement
rather than hindering it. The Dervaes' actions feel a bit like it
might feel if Barbara Kingsolver tried to make people stop using the
term "local food".
I'd be curious to hear
your take on the matter. Meanwhile, if you've linked to any of
their sites in the past (urbanhomestead.org, dervaesgardens.com,
peddlerswagon.com, freedomgardens.org, barnyardsandbackyards.org, and
homegrownrevolutionfilm.com), I recommend you take down the links to
help the Dervaes family understand that giving a little bit to the
little guys impacts their bottom line.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I wonder if most folks know the difference between the Principal Register and the Supplemental Register at the United States Patent and Trademark Office?
According to unconfirmed sources, the Dervaes trademark of urban homesteading is on what's called the Supplemental Register as opposed to the Principal Register.
What does that mean?
According to Wikipedia being in the Supplemental Register does not confer any additional rights on the holder of a mark beyond those provided by common law.
From Wikipedia:
In United States trademark law, the Supplemental Register is the secondary register of trademarks maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It was established in 1946 by Subchapter II of the Lanham Act, to allow the domestic registration of trademarks that do not meet all the requirements for registration on the Principal Register, so that the holder(s) of such a mark could register it in another country. This was necessary because under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property foreign registration was not permitted in the absence of domestic registration, and the trademark laws of countries outside the U.S. often have less stringent registration requirements for marks.
The only requirement for registration on the Supplemental Register is that a mark be capable of distinguishing goods or services, not that it actually serve such a function. Registration on the Supplemental Register does not confer any additional rights on the holder of a mark beyond those provided by common law. Marks registered on the Supplemental Register are not subject to opposition proceedings, but they may be canceled at any time by a court. Holders of such marks are still permitted to sue for trademark infringement.
Visit a depressed urban or rural area, and you'll see many abandoned pieces of land going unstewarded, while the few who are sticking it out in the area work around them. The landscape is made static by property laws and economics.
These people are trying to do that to language. Happily, language is much better at finding ways to work around such things. For example, nobody talks about "UNIX (TM)" or "UN*X" anymore. Unhappily, considerable bother is needed for such an adjustment.
The irony that they probably live in a landscape blighted by this same problem, and are probably constantly working against it there.
These terms are so generic that I wonder why they are even eligable for trademark protection?
But then a lot of lobbying has distorted the several types of distinct laws (copyright, patents, trademark) that are commonly if erroneously lumped together as "IP".
I can understand giving an author an incentive to create more works by allowing him a goverment mandated monopoly on copying his works, so he can profit from it. (copyright) But since an author cannot create works when he is dead, any copyright term extending past the lifetime of the author is just gratuitous lining of the pockets of middlemen who had no part in creating the work. Also, the explicit target of copyright is to eventually enrich the public domain; they are meant to expire. The current copyright term of 90 years after the death of the author means that noone alive today will see works created today become part of the public domain; copyright has become effectively eternal.
That patents were created in a similar matter to give an incentive to invent I can understand as well. But the fact that you can patent things like software (which is essentially math), business methods and even existing genes (which might be discoveries but certainly not inventions) means the system has gone too far. Patents can also easily be abused to prevent competition instead of to "promote the progress of Science and useful Arts".
On the subject of inventions, I'm with Benjamin Franklin (from his autobiography);
"... as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
The picture of the book cover in your post is not from the Dervaes family but from a nice couple at http://www.rootsimple.com/ I have been following their blog and I'm sure they would not want to be confused with these trademark fiends! Hopefully, people will see the difference, but I just wanted to put that plug in.
As an up and coming uran hostea*er myself (I'm bleeping the word; will that keep me out of trouble : ) let me speak in favor of city living for a moment...
Even though I live in a sprawled-out city, I'm hoping that my efforts will someday lead to urbanites living a more self-sufficient (but also interdependent!) lifestyle. There's a great potential to reduce transportation costs (oil, etc.) by living close together. I would love to live in the country and spread out on several acres, but being a social butterfly I would be driving to town way too much. Also, there's so much disconnect in the city. I hope my little city lot can someday be inspirational and educational to those who want to find out where food comes from and (not to be too sappy) where some of the stress of modern day living can be melted away (cue Judy Garland here!)
In any case, I am ADDICTED to your blog! Thanks for all the great posts. I started my orchard this spring and am constantly referring to old posts for tips and tricks on this and other new endeavors on my city farm!
I was curious, so I looked at their site...
http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2011/02/18/pack-of-lies/
Any idea what the real story is? If someone is setting them up, how crazy!
Thanks.
Anon --- There seems to be a spate of dubious trademarking going around at the moment. Mark told me that someone in California has trademarked the term "potsticker"...
Ikwig --- You said it even better than I did. It's the counterproductivity that gets me --- if you want the movement to succeed, you won't try to keep other people from using the term.
Joey --- I've heard you talk about this issue before, and never completely saw your point, but this makes a lot of sense.
Roland --- It all comes down to money for the big guy. Which is just sad since so many innovations come from little people tinkering in their garages --- that's clearly who the laws were originally meant to protect before lobbyists got involved.
Erin --- Thanks for making that distinction --- I was including that photo of the bookcover to refer to the books coming out right now with urban homesteading in the title. If the data I found online is right, the couple is one of the groups that received the Dervaes' letter.
I'm glad you chimed in about the benefits of urban homesteading. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed that it really is possible to live simply in the city, especially right now when Americans create so much waste. That's one of the huge benefits you have over someone like me --- we try to snag as much organic waste as possible from the surrounding area, but it requires some driving even so, and you can presumably just take a yellow wagon and walk down the street to pick up lawn waste, food scraps, and much more.
The page on the Dervaes site that you linked to is technically correct --- they aren't suing anyone. However, from the best information I can find online, it sounds like they sent out 16 cease and desist letters (which have softish language and don't come out and say "cease and desist", but which would definitely make someone like me who can't afford to be sued consider just doing what they tell me to do.) In a way, that feels almost worse. I don't think they have a legal leg to stand on if they wanted to sue someone over the issue, but by choosing to send their letters to people who can't afford to pay for lawyers (like a public library), they are basically doing the same thing.
(And thanks for the kind words about our blog! It keeps us going to hear from folks who are inspired by our content!)
I think the best thing we can all do is to contact any family, friends or acquaintances we have who live in or near Pasadena, CA and ask them to contact every single restaurant that buys food from this family. Hit them where it counts - their pocket book - since that's obviously what they are trying to grow (not veggies, these days).
I once had a geographically-city-oriented, self-sufficient vegetable-&-food-producing-animal family-housing-unit. Now we live in the country. But I think people who have geographically-city-oriented, self-sufficient vegetable-&-food-producing-animal family-housing-units are great. I hope there are more of them.
By the way, I'm tradmarking "geographically-city-oriented, self-sufficient vegetable-&-food-producing-animal family-housing-unit". From now on you have to just say "My thingy".
I removed my links to them: http://www.livingoffgrid.org/farm-links/
Lisa --- good call with the link to the letter! I had read that, but forgot to not-link to it.
Daddy --- That's probably what we would do if they bullied us (which they haven't), but it seems like a shame for the general homesteading community to continue to support them when they've been so un-neighborly. That's why I figured we should start a stink about it.
Everett --- Great idea about contacting folks near Pasadena to ask them to contact the restaurants. Good thing I don't live in the city, since I now can't talk about Geographically-city-oriented, Self-sufficient Vegetable-&-food-producing-animal Family-housing-units (TM) (a registered trademark of livingasimplelife.com.
Mark said the same thing you did about their blog --- they seem to be awfully glossy and not to have much real information. I have to admit that I've never added them to my blogroll for exactly that reason. (Presumably, I just didn't know about them when they were young and relevant.)
(Thanks so much for your kind words about us! I'm glad our mess inspires somebody.
)
"I had no idea it might have originated with them"
That's the funny part --- they don't even claim to have originated the term...because they didn't. http://naturallifemagazine.com/blog/?p=408, for example, claims that they've used the term "urban homestead" in their print magazine since 1976, while the Devraes family have only been urban homesteading since 1985.
I'm glad you removed your links!
I agree with the poster above who said they seldom go to their site anymore because it's so corporate-looking. They watermarks all over their pictures are annoying. If I wanted a picture of a jar of canned tomatoes or a pretty basket full of veggies I could take one myself -- eesh.
I just wonder what they are going through, as individuals, that spurred them to do this? Wanting security and to benefit from the fruits of one's labours is forgivably human. Maybe they have had it with spending their whole day growing food, have started to enjoy thinking of building a business, etc. Maybe that is the evolution of things -- we get complicated, we go back to simple, we enjoy simple for a bit and then want to build and grow again. The homestead movement is all new and exciting for city people but maybe long-time farmers and people like this family are tired of spending all day tending food and they want some of the fun stuff that city people thrive on -- blogging, building their businesses, thinking of how to build multiple income streams.
But, in the end, though I can sympathize with why they may have shifted gears, it's unappealing to me and I don't visit their site very much anymore.
Maggie --- I agree!
Brandy --- "Yardening" sounds very catchy! Better snap it up.
MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT TO CANCEL DERVAES INSTITUTE TRADEMARK FILED. (MSJ) What is an MSJ? A motion is a request for some court action. There are routine motions to approve a trial schedule or a settlement agreement. Motions are the way that lawyers involved in a court case communicate with the court (the judge) and ask it for one or another of hundreds of decisions that the court can make for or against one party or the other during a legal proceeding. Normally, a court dispute culminates in a trial. But a motion for summary judgment shortcuts this process by allowing a judge to decide the case based on undisputed facts that support one side or the other. This saves months or years of time and money getting ready for trial and having a trial. If the judge rules in our favor on the MSJ, the case is over and we win. However, if the MSJ is denied, the case proceeds to trial. While losing a motion for summary judgment does not mean that we will lose at trial, winning is a great victory that doesn’t happen often and which saves all of us time and money. And unfortunately, the USPTO is reluctant to grant motions for summary judgment in order to give every opportunity to defend the case. So start now and hold your breath. You can read our motion at http://www.denverurbanhomesteading.org/ or at the USPTO website where the Winston & Strawn motion is or will soon be published.